All the Perfumes
by cerdd gwen
Summary: A spell in Sunnydale forces the Scoobies to confront aspects of their pasts. Post-"Beneath You." --Complete--
1. Introduction

**Introduction**

**Summary: A spell in Sunnydale forces the Scoobies to confront aspects of their pasts.**

**Teaser: "Are you hurt?"**

Buffy whirled around. "I thought you were asleep," she said sheepishly. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

Dawn shook her head.

"We need to talk," she said softly, turning to shut the door behind her. Buffy, who had moved back to her slowly filling tub of water, looked up in surprise.

"Now?" she asked. "Isn't it a little late, honey?"

"This isn't just about you – as much as you'd like it to be."

**Timeframe: Take place immediately following the episode "Beneath You_" (7.02). Contains spoilers for everything up until that point._**

**Rating: R**

**Thanks to: Big thanks to SpikesPet (whose own writing is at http://spikespet.tvheaven.com) for her awesome beta. Any mistakes you find are ones I snuck in when she wasn't looking. And thanks to my sister who gave me tons of ideas, and also made me add a little more angst than there would have been otherwise. I also have to thank everyone who's answered my questions about writing fanfic over at We Band of Buggered (http://www.bandofbuggered.com/forum/).**

**Suggested Listening: If you take "Innocent" by _Our Lady Peace and put it on repeat that should put you in the mood for the story. And add some Sarah McLachlan towards the end._**

**Feedback: I will love you forever, give you my first-born child, cut off my ear (unless that's too creepy), write an epic poem comparing you to a daisy and a tower and, if you're lucky, even a lake… In a word, yes. Please. My address is cerdd_gwen@hotmail.com. **

**Distribution: You want it? You really want it? Well, of course you can have it. Just let me know where it's going, and provide a link back to the main site for the story here at http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/cerdd_gwen/perfumes/**

**Disclaimer: _Buffy the Vampire Slayer is property of Mutant Enemy, UPN, Joss Whedon, and a bunch of other people who are a whole lot richer than I am._**


	2. Part One

**Part One**

Buffy briefly wondred if he might be Jesus.

She knew it was ridiculous, but he just seemed so… martyred. God, if there was one to believe in, hadn't raised a hand to end his son's suffering and apparently didn't care for Spike's. Just as Buffy stood close and yet very, very far away as she watched him crucify himself in the dark.

In her mind, she saw herself walk up the darkened aisle towards the altar. To the cross where her sometime lover was offering himself up to her, smoking like incense. She saw herself reach out and touch him. Touch his shoulder gently.

He would turn to her, his beautiful face open and questioning. She would press a single finger up to his lips and look deep into his blue eyes. Then she would replace her finger with her own soft lips. And she would feel. Finally feel the tenderness and passion and love she ached for.

She would fall into his gentle embrace, let his deft fingers twine in her hair, let her own palms spread across the lean muscles of his back.

"Buffy," he'd say softly, hoarsely, between kisses. "I love you."

She would looked up into his burning eyes and smile slightly. Then she'd pull back her arm and deck him. Send him crashing back into the cross with all the supernatural strength in her fist.

Because he still wasn't a man. And sometimes she barely had enough humanity left to call herself a woman.

She ran the other direction, out of the church. Away from a suffering she couldn't comprehend and a love she didn't want to know. She stumbled through the familiar graveyard, her inherent grace gone. Everything was raw and dark. She could barely see for all violence roiling in her mind. Fighting and slaying and killing. Blood and sex and pain. It wasn't enough anymore. Not that it ever had been. This wasn't a life, not for him, and certainly not for her.

She needed to get home now. Home to the life she had for herself there, outside of the night and the darkness. Home to Dawn. And to the new job she had waiting for herself in the morning.

She suddenly felt the impact of an unrepentant tombstone nailing her shins. A severe pain lanced through them and she winced.

"What's wrong with you?"

She quickly glanced upwards, ready for a fight. But it was just Anya.

"What are you doing here?" Buffy demanded irritably, struggling to a standing position.

"I came here to check on you, and good thing I did. You really shouldn't be so clumsy, tripping like that in the middle of a graveyard at night." She stared at the slayer pointedly, watching as she tried to brush grave dirt off her jeans. "What if I had been a demon?" Anya continued. "You're very vulnerable lying there on the ground."

"You are a demon," Buffy pointed out dryly, pushing her way past her towards the cemetery entrance. She stifled a groan as her injured shins protested.

"Not of the slayer killing variety, luckily for you," Anya shot back defensively, matching Buffy's gait.

"Well, why aren't you?" Buffy demanded truculently and whirled around to face her. She was getting so damn tired of dealing with demons who wanted to straddle the line between good and evil. One she had just left behind broken in a church, but this one she could freely take her frustrations out on. "What? You don't have the rocks to be truly evil? Funny how that didn't stop you for a thousand years."

"I'm a vengeance demon," Anya seethed. "It's not about evil. I help people. Just like you."

"Oh, don't you dare say that." Buffy clenched her fists and took a step forward. The other woman involuntarily flinched backwards. "Don't you dare even compare your petty little wishes to the calling I've given up my life for."

"I gave up my life for it, too," Anya defended herself. "Twice."

"Oh, that's right," Buffy mocked her angrily. "You gave up the misery and heartache of humanity to live forever with super strength and teleportation and God knows what other stupid powers. Poor you."

"I've sacrificed a thousand years for the cause of vengeance, to help people—"

"No," Buffy interrupted hotly. "You took the easy way out. Again." She took another step forward, her face right in Anya's, meeting her indignant eyes. "An apocalypse comes, you skedaddle out of town. Life gets to hard? Become a cold-hearted demon so you don't have to feel. Well, you know what, _Anyanka?" She spat out the demon name. "My life doesn't work like that. I've given up everything I've ever had and loved to help defeat an evil that you're all to ready to rejoin. So don't talk to me about sacrifice or duty or, God, anything!"_

Halfway home, after stomping away from Anya indignantly, Buffy wondered if she should regret her harsh words. It had just been too much, too quickly. Buffy couldn't deal with Anya and her stupid wish, Spike with his stupid soul, and everything else going on in her own stupid life all at the same time. Buffy pinched the bridge of her nose and sat down on the curb.

She hated Spike. Hated him with every bone in her body. She hated him for bringing out the worst in her, and hated him for letting her bring out the best in him.

And she hated this world, where a human could kill in cold blood and an unrepentant vampire could actually seek out a soul. Where a vengeance demon of all creatures could walk in the gray area. She hated that she didn't know anymore, who to slay and who to save.

She shivered slightly. She was so tired and felt so alone.

Buffy finally dragged herself home a half-hour later. She dropped her keys on the front hall table and made her way to the living room, where late night MTV was lighting up the walls.

Buffy watched for a moment. "I didn't know we got porn on basic cable."

Dawn literally jumped off the couch. "Buffy!" she exclaimed. She fumbled for the remote. "You scared me. You shouldn't sneak up on people like that." She quickly shut the television off, dousing the room in darkness. "And it's not porn. They don't even show naked butts."

Buffy raised her eyebrows.

"It's a TV show," Dawn continued, walking around her sister towards the kitchen. "On TV. And just because it's called Undressed doesn't mean it's not a perfectly good—and where have you been all night, anyways?" She flipped the kitchen light switch and turned narrowed eyes on her sister. "Xander called and checked in, like, over an hour ago."

"I, uh…" _Damn Xander. "I had to do a sweep of the graveyards," she lied quickly. "You know, see what other nasties were out and about."_

"Oh," Dawn said, pulling a milk carton out of the fridge. "So what'd you find? Any vamps?"

"What? No!" Buffy protested. "No vampires!"

"Um, okay…" Dawn gave her a patented younger sister look and took a sip from her glass. "Eww!" she cried out and spat quickly into the sink.

Buffy frowned, walking over to examine the milk carton. "This expired two weeks ago."

"No duh." Dawn turned to Buffy, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

"I'll go shopping on Friday," she promised.

"Yeah, whatever." Dawn rolled her eyes and headed upstairs.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_The Next Morning_

Dawn tapped her pencil on her leg impatiently as Xander stopped at yet another stoplight.

"So where'd you run off to last night?" he asked.

She watched from the back seat as her sister turned her head sharply.

"What?" Buffy demanded.

"You know, after Anya reversed the wish, and you ran off. You went to see Spike, didn't you?"

Dawn knew he was right but she couldn't find it in herself to be angry that her sister had lied to her. She did want to pound Buffy over the head with a frying pan, though, if nothing more than for her predictably bad decisions regarding the vampire in question.

"What's going on with him, anyways?" Xander asked. "He was all with the crazy there in the Bronze."

"I don't know," Buffy mumbled. Dawn knew this, too, was a lie, and would soon be followed with a classic Buffy diversionary tactic. Buffy didn't disappoint. "Oh, but look! There's the school. Dawn, we'd better go or we're both going to be late."

Dawn sighed impatiently and reached over to pull the door handle.

"Remember Willow, guys." Xander's voice stopped them.

"What?" Buffy asked.

"Coming home? Tonight?" Xander raised his eyebrows. Dawn wasn't surprised, though, that Buffy had forgotten. She tended to avoid dwelling on complicated situations, even when they were important.

"Oh, right."

"I'll be over at seven to drive you guys to the airport."

"Don't be late," Buffy said before closing the door. "We don't want to miss her."

Dawn glanced around the cafeteria nervously, her heart pounding. She took a deep calming breath and approached _His table._

"Brian?" she asked. Her voice coming out all squeaky--so not the seductively husky tone she had planned. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Brian?"

He turned his head away from the conversation at his table and gave her a friendly grin. Dawn gripped her lunch tray with whitened knuckles, half-terrified that she would swoon from his attention. And then there would be spilled lunch and doctors and laughing and embarrassment all around.

"Hey, Dawn," he said easily. "What's up?"

_He knew her name! He knew her name! Wait, how did he know her name?_

"You are in fifth period design with me. You're kinda hard to miss."

_Shit. She must have asked that last bit out loud. "Oh, yeah," she said, deciding to try for nonchalance, even if it was a bit late. And was 'kind of hard to miss' a compliment or not?_

"So, what's up?"

Dawn tore her eyes away from his light blue ones and tried to remember her carefully thought-out excuse to talk to him.

"Um… do you know what time it is?"

Buffy's workday ended at twelve, because the principal told her they didn't have the money to take her on full time. Xander had grumbled that it was because they were too cheap to pay for her benefits, at which point Buffy had said that he sounded just like Anya. That had shut him up.

It was a quarter past noon now, if Brian's watch had been accurate, and Dawn figured it couldn't have taken Buffy more than fifteen minutes to leave campus. It wasn't like she was doing anything important, anyways.

She glanced both ways down the hallway surreptitiously before slinking past the "No Student Entry" door to the basement. Her stint as a petty thief paid off sometimes. She had scoped out the security cameras in the halls ahead of time, and chosen the only one of the three basement access doors that wasn't being videotaped.

Dawn made her way down the clunky staircase, wondering why they couldn't have rebuilt the basement along with the new high school. At least have hired a cleaning crew and added some new lights.

She cautiously approached the hellmouth. Or the general area. She wasn't entirely sure what the hellmouth looked like, where it ended or where it began. Whether it was really a big hole in the earth or if it was just a general field of evil energy. No one had ever thought to take her on a tour of Sunnydale's underworld, so she felt her way through, calling his name as she walked.

"You've not been invited."

Dawn whirled around, and made out the outline of the vampire's familiar profile in the dark.

"Spike," she spat out. "You're here."

"Little Bo Peep," he addressed her, stepping forward. "They never guessed it was you, did they? Do they know about the sheep?" Spike asked anxiously, his eyes darting around as he approached her.

"What?" Sure, Spike had appeared different last night, but when Xander had said he was crazy, she figured he was exaggerating.

"The sheep? They're here, you know. All over and around and under but you'll never find them. Ever."

"Spike," Dawn spoke, trying to ignore his litany. "You have to tell me what happened last night."

"Last night?" Her command seemed to temporarily jolt him out of his lunacy. "You're here to set me on fire, then, are you?"

"So you did hurt her," Dawn inferred, her voice tense and eyes narrow. "I knew something happened."

"See, problem is, lil' bit, I'm not asleep."

"Doesn't matter," she shrugged. "Just tell me what you did, and then we'll worry about it."

Spike clucked his tongue. "Uh uh uh, little slayer. Tell the tale, you get the cash, innat how it works now?"

"What?" she asked incredulously. "You want me to pay you?"

The vampire clutched his head suddenly. "Oh no. Oh no," he groaned, falling to the floor. "Make it stop! Bloody make it—"

He opened his eyes and looked back at Dawn, suddenly calm. "Stop. Now, what was it you wanted, bit?"

"What's wrong with you?" She stared in disbelief at the crumpled shell of a vampire before her.

"You're bleeding," he said suddenly, staring down at her abdomen.

Dawn looked down at her own midriff, peeking out under her short-cropped shirt, almost expecting to find blood there. "Spike, what--?"

"Stop it! Stop the bleeding!" he cried out frantically, and reached out a clammy hand to her stomach. Dawn yelped at the contact and jumped back. "Stop it!" he yelled desperately. "Make it stop!"

Dawn turned and ran.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_That Night_

"Finally!" the man next to Willow exclaimed. Willow raised her eyes reluctantly and noticed that the seatbelt sign had blinked off. "That was the longest flight ever. I hate flying."

Willow nodded politely, though she didn't share his sentiments. She had spent the whole seven hour New York-Sunnydale flight making nice with the overweight businessman seated next to her, but now she was afraid if she so much as opened her mouth she would throw up all over him. As far as she was concerned, the flight couldn't have been long enough. In fact, she was half-hoping this would end up like the Langoliers and an empty airport would greet them. Nothing could be worse than what she was about to face.

"Miss," the man nudged her with his carry-on bag and Willow jumped. "You need to get up. It's time to get off."

She sighed nervously and briefly considered Plan B: waiting until everyone had gotten off and then hiding out in the lavatory for the next flight that would take her anywhere, absolutely anywhere but here.

She clutched her tote bag to her chest and slowly stood up. Wading with the flow of passengers through the narrow aisles, she made it to the gate. She felt like her heart was going to stop. Or explode. Or simply just…

One more step and she'd be out in the open. One more step and there they'd be. There she'd be. She halted.

"Hey, watch it!" Someone jostled her from behind but she ignored them. Taking a deep breath and clutching her tote like it was her last link to life, she stepped forward.

"There she is!" Xander exclaimed excitedly and Buffy strained on her tip-toes to see over the crowd of people at the gate.

"Wow, her hair's lighter," Dawn said, and Buffy directed a small frown in her direction, aimed at Dawn's ever-increasing height.

"Willow!" Xander yelled.

She heard her name and knew it was finally too late to run back onto the plane. Gathering up what remained of her courage, she put on a smile and turned around.

"Will!" Xander exclaimed again as he rushed forward. Willow let herself get caught up in his arms. She looked over his shoulder at Buffy and Dawn. They looked so… put together. So grown up from the last time she saw them. It made her heart ache.

"Hey, Will," Buffy approached them, and reached an arm around her friend. Dawn came up on her other side and awkwardly found a place in the group hug. Willow should have felt loved, safe, and relieved, but she only felt cold. She didn't belong here, but she knew she had to stay. She had to change that.

"Hey, guys," she croaked out.

"It's so good to see you," Buffy said, backing away.

"Yeah," Dawn echoed.

"We missed you, Will," Xander said, finally releasing her. Willow offered him a small smile.

"Me too. I'm so glad to be back."

Willow wasn't sure whether she should be relieved that she wouldn't be staying in the same house where Tara had been, or hurt by Buffy's subtle rejection. _We thought it would be better for both of you if you had some time together, she had said, drawing Willow aside as the four of them made their way out to the airport parking lot.__ Xander's been so lonely without Anya, maybe you can cheer him up._

She trailed after Xander as he lugged her suitcases through the doorway to his apartment.

"I just… I wish I had finished the training before I came back," she began, suddenly feeling the need to explain herself. "But I guess there's supposed to be this big, bad force rising and you might need me. I know you won't at first, but I want you to know that you can trust me. I won't do anything. I mean, I have control now, more than before—"

Xander cut her off, turning and squeezing her shoulder reassuringly. "You don't have to give me the speech, Will." Willow figured she must have looked surprised because Xander chuckled softly and said, "I trust you."

"You do?" she squeaked out.

"Of course. I love you." He enveloped her in a hug and she almost relaxed against his broad chest. "Am I going to have to give you another crayon speech?"

"But everything I did—"

"That wasn't you," Xander assured her.

Willow jerked back to look at him. "What? No, I—"

"No, see, I've thought about it a lot this summer, and it was the magicks that did that to you." He gave her another smile and turned towards the kitchen. "It wasn't your fault."

"But, Xander—"

"You hungry?" He opened the refrigerator.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_Several Days Later_

"What are you good for? Coke, Sprite, any fruity nectar?" Xander asked, wiggling his eyebrows. "I don't normally like to be seen carrying Zima around, but for you, my dear, anything."

Willow smiled at his attempt at humor. "Just a Diet Coke. Thanks."

"One glass of calorie-free carbonated goodness coming right up. Buffy?"

"Same for me," she said, looking towards the dance floor of the Bronze, where her sister was cutting the rug, or tiled floor, rather, with her friends from school.

"I'll be back," Xander said and headed off towards the bar. Willow and Buffy glanced quickly at each other. It was the first time they had been alone together since she had come back.

"So…" Willow ventured, trying to dispel the awkward silence. "How's work?"

"Work is work," Buffy said descriptively. She sighed. "I'm sorry I haven't been by to see you lately, but this is my first night off since you've been back."

"That's fine," she said hurriedly. "I mean, it's only been a week and I'm still kind of settling in and all…"

"Yeah," Buffy mused. "I haven't been seeing much of anyone lately, really. Even Dawn. I work at the high school until twelve and then my shifts at the Doublemeat usually start at four. And after that, there's the slaying…"

"Do you need any help with that? I mean," Willow backtracked. "I know I'm not exactly slayer caliber without calling on the dark magicks, but I could at least give you some company. Like old times." Her voice perked up at the thought.

"Uh, maybe…" Buffy said non-comittally. "But during the week I usually go right from the Doublemeat, and on weekends, Dawn likes to come along."

Willow nodded "It's too bad Spike's gone," she mused.

"What?" Buffy asked sharply.

"To help with the slaying," Willow clarified. "I mean, last year you were always out together – not in that way, but, I mean… Well, he's stronger than any of the rest of us and—"

"Who's stronger than the rest of you?" Xander sauntered up, setting down the bubbling drinks before the girls with a flourish. "Not talking about me behind my back again, are you?"

"Spike," Willow answered. Buffy lowered her head, studiously avoiding eye contact with either of her friends.

"Spike," Xander repeated incredulously, and set his beer down on the table with a bang. "Why is everything always about Spike, huh?" he asked accusatorily. "I can't leave for two minutes without you going off heaping praises on he evil undead?"

"Xander." Willow looked shocked.

"No, I'm serious," Xander continued, clenching his beer bottle tightly. "What's it going to take before you girls finally realize that he's evil? I mean, Buffy, after everything he did to you, you went and welcomed him back last week with open arms."

"Spike's back?" Willow glanced back and forth between her two friends.

"Is that Dawn?" Buffy asked suddenly, staring out at the dance floor. Willow and Xander followed her gaze, both looking disconcerted at the change in topic.

"Looks like Dawn's having a good time," Willow said diplomatically after a moment of watching the teenager bounce around to the fast-beat pop music. "Who's that guy?"

"Do you think they're dancing too close?" Buffy moved to stand up. "I think they're dancing too close."

"Um, she looks okay to me," Willow said, uncertain.

Buffy's eyes flashed at her friend. _This was the same friend who had broken Dawn's arm in a magic-induced car crash, who would have killed Dawn in a flash just weeks before. And now she was presuming to judge what was and was not okay for her sister?_

"I never danced like that when I was her age," Buffy protested darkly.

"Yeah, because you were practically a nun in high school," Xander said sarcastically and continued despite Buffy's lethal glare. "I don't remember any lewd dances or trench coats or sex with two hundred and fifty-year-old vampires…"

"I was seventeen then," she shot back defensively. "And I don't want Dawn turning out like me anyways."

She walked around the table to approach the dance floor, but Willow put a calming hand on her arm.

"Buffy," she said quietly, and the slayer turned to her impatiently. "Look, they're not even touching. It's a fast song, anyways."

"A lot can happen during fast songs," Buffy argued.

"Well, yeah, I guess, but…" As Willow trailed off, her eyes turned back to the crowd of teenagers on the dance floor. "Look, she looks so happy," she continued. "I haven't seen her smile like that since… well, not for a long time."

"She does look happy," Buffy admitted begrudgingly. And then she thought of what had wiped Dawn's original happy-go-lucky smile off her face. Their mom's death, her death, Willow's betrayal, Buffy's negligence… and now Dawn was smiling again, not because of Buffy but in spite of her. Because of a stranger. A strange boy she barely knew had put that wide, carefree grin on her face and the lively sparkle back into her eyes.

Buffy quietly sat back down.

"Guess what? Guess what?" Dawn bounced breathlessly back to their table once the song ended. She glance surreptitiously over her shoulder to make sure her former dance partner was out of earshot. "That was Brian. I danced with Brian McKenna!" she continued before anyone had a chance to answer. "Brian McKenna danced with me!"

Buffy just stared at her sister, wondering if Dawn was aware of the extent to which she was channeling her twelve-year-old self.

"He's definitely hot," Willow offered and Dawn shot her the first real smile she had given Willow since her return.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Xander interjected, taking a sip of his light beer.

"What the big deal is?" Dawn repeated indignantly. "He's only the star player on Sunnydale High's basketball team."

"Isn't he a little short for that?" Buffy asked, earning herself a glare from Dawn, which she ignored. She squinted her eyes, focusing on the teenage boy across the crowded club. "And does he bleach his hair?"

Dawn looked back over at Brian, who was now hanging out with a couple other seniors she recognized from the team. "Only the tips," she defended him.

"Oz used to dye his hair, like every week," Willow offered helpfully, and then backtracked. "But he was a werewolf and you do want to make sure that Brian isn't one. As much as I liked Oz, the fanginess really got in the way."

"Or a vampire," Buffy supplied, more to annoy Dawn than anything else. "Are there any mirrors here? Have you ever seen him in the sunlight?"

"God!" Dawn exclaimed in frustration. "Why do I even bother with you guys?"

"The refreshments," Xander answered with a grin, holding up the cola he had retrieved for her. Dawn took it gratefully and gulped down one large sip.

"Thanks, Xan," she said, and then turned back to the dance floor. "Okay. I'm going back in." 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_Later that night_

Buffy cringed as she leaned over to open the bathtub faucet. She was exhausted and currently regretting her decision to take the long way home from the Bronze for some late night stakeage. All she wanted now was to strip off these perky, pretty clothes and sail naked in a tub of hot water. She closed her eyes and inhaled, drinking in the steam.

"Are you hurt?"

Buffy whirled around. "I thought you were asleep," she said sheepishly. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

Dawn shook her head.

"We need to talk," she said softly, turning to shut the door behind her. Buffy, who had moved back to her slowly filling tub of water, looked up in surprise.

"Now?" she asked. "Isn't it a little late, honey?"

"This isn't just about you – as much as you'd like it to be."****


	3. Part Two

**Part Two**

A chill ran down Buffy's spine. She stood up slowly. "Dawnie—"

"You'll feel it again," Dawn growled and stepped forward, grabbing for Buffy's shoulders. Her sharp little fingernails dug into her skin.

Buffy tried to shove her off, but Dawn's grip was too strong for her to move her without the risk of injuring her sister. Their combined weights toppled them both over, Buffy landing first, slamming her back into wall of the porcelain tub. She cried out.

"You'll feel it again, Buffy," Dawn seethed, and began tearing at her sister's shirt.

"Dawn!" Buffy yelled, trying to bat away her sister's frantic hands. "Dawn, stop it!"

"The only time you ever felt it was when I was inside you," she continued obliviously, hell bent on her purpose. Buffy felt scratch marks forming across her chest.

"Stop it!" she yelled one last time, and managed to flip them over. She pinned Dawn underneath her on the bathroom floor. "Dawn, what the hell's going on?"

"You, you'll—" Dawn spat out angrily. Her eyes suddenly widened in confusion and she stopped struggling. "Buffy?" she asked in a small voice.

Buffy immediately relaxed. She let her weary body collapse on top of her sister's.

"Buffy, what's going on?" Dawn asked. "What just happened? I—I don't know what I was doing. It was like I was watching, but I— 

"Buffy?" she asked in concern when her sister didn't respond, and tried to maneuver herself into a sitting position. Buffy, despite her massive strength, was so light Dawn had no trouble lifting her up. "Buffy," she tried to meet her sister's eyes. "Are you okay? I didn't mean—whatever just happened, I didn't mean it. I don't know what…"

Buffy met her sister's gaze, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "I know, Dawnie, I just…"

"Oh, God, I ruined your new shirt." Buffy just stared back at her blankly. "I'll… well, I don't have money to buy you a new shirt, but, um, you can borrow any of mine that you want. Even that new purple one that I haven't even worn yet. Buffy?"

Buffy stood up slowly. "Dawnie, that wasn't you, don't worry about it. It must have just been… I don't know. Demonic possession or something. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Buffy?" Dawn frowned in concern.

"Dawn, let's just deal with this in the morning, okay?"

"Of course." Dawn stood up and leaned over the bathtub to shut off the faucet. She reached a hand into the almost-overflowing tub and cursed, withdrawing it quickly. "This is way too hot." She knew Buffy liked hot baths but this was ridiculous. She reached over to pull the drain and turned back to her sister, but she was already gone.

Dawn snuck back into the bathroom after she was sure Buffy was asleep. She turned on the bright fluorescent lights and stared down at the floor while her eyes adjusted from the darkness. Reaching into the cupboard beneath the sink, she pulled out a disinfectant and began spraying it over the small white tiles, its lemony scent wafting up to her. She grabbed a paper towel and began to scrub.

Tears came to her eyes as she replayed the events of the evening in her mind. Buffy's reaction, or lack thereof, had said it all. Somehow she had been caught up in a twisted re-enactment of the infamous attempted rape. More than caught up, though. For a moment, Dawn had been Spike. She had felt everything he had felt that night, thought everything he had thought.

She guessed it was only expected to be disturbed by that, by being in the mind of a would-be rapist, a known serial killer and an evil soulless demon. But the worst part was that she hadn't been in the mind of any of those. She had been in the mind of a good man – a distraught, desperate, confused man – but a good man, nonetheless. A man who had loved her sister to no end.

And if he could twist his human emotions and good intentions into such depravity, what did that say about the rest of them? What hope did anyone have?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_The Next Morning_

"Hi, Spike," Willow said quietly and the vampire jumped.

"What are you—what are you doing here?" he asked anxiously, his eyes darting back and forth with a nervousness she had never witnessed in Spike before.

She gave him a small smile.

"I just came to say hi." It was nice to finally find someone in worse shape than she was.

Spike sighed noisily. "That's bloody beautiful, innit?" he asked, his voice directed somewhere above her. "The witch wants to say 'hi' to bloody William. Well, say hi, then, witch, and be on your merry little way. Important tasks at hand, there are."

Willow didn't have trouble following his ramblings. "And what are these important tasks? Anything I can help with?"

He shot her an extremely suspicious look. "No. Better off alone, better off… you should go. 'Fore I hurt you. I hurt people like you."

"But you can't hurt me, remember?" she reminded him quietly.

"Oh, yes, yes I can." He laughed hysterically. "In ways you can't even imagine, witch."

"No, you can't," she insisted firmly. "And I'm staying." She looked down at her watch. "I'm supposed to meet Xander at the work site for lunch in an hour. Until then you're going to have to put up with me."

"You made the blood run," he said quietly, his demeanor shifting as he stared at her intently. "I heard about you. You liked the blood, didn't you? Sweet like honey, but you didn't like the aftertaste much."

She nodded, but didn't respond. Instead she glanced around the dingy basement room. The walls were covered in pipes, and there was no furniture. Just dirt. Dirt on the floor, everywhere. "So I heard you're living here now. I have to say, I liked the crypt better."

He laughed again, that high-pitched maniacal laugh. "There's blood in the crypt, Red. Red… red like blood. Red everywhere. Do you see red everywhere, too?"

Dawn slammed her locker door shut and then jumped in surprise at the noise it made. She took a deep breath to calm herself, and then turned to walk down to class.

Coming down the hallway towards her, though, was no other than Brian himself. Before he could make eye contact, Dawn turned and hurried the other direction, hoping to lose herself in the noisy crowd of teenagers.

Someone bumped into her, though, and forced her aside. Before Dawn could see who it was and yell a 'hey!' or a 'watch it!' she looked up and read the sign on the door she found herself slammed against.

"Basement Access. No Student Entry."

Spike. Spike was down there. All day long, just twenty feet below her, was the man she had suddenly gotten to know far too intimately.

She jerked herself away from the door and turned around to find herself suddenly staring into light blue eyes.

"Hey, Dawn," Brian greeted her with a warm smile.

"Brian." She glanced desperately around him for an escape route.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "I saw that jerk practically knock you down over there."

"Oh… oh, right." Dawn desperately searched her addled mind for an appropriate response. "I'm fine, thanks."

"People can be so rude sometimes." He shook his head, his beautiful eyes filled with concern.

"Right… yeah. Um, I have to get to class, but I'll talk to you later, k?" She hurried off before even finishing her sentence, calling the last part out to him over her shoulder.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_That Evening_

"Happy birthday!"

Dawn jumped at the flurry of voices. Well, not flurry. The three voices that heralded her as she walked into the kitchen. Her eyes widened.

"What's going on?" she asked, taking in the homemade "Happy Birthday, Dawn!" banner and the copiously-frosted cake on the kitchen island.

"It's a surprise," Buffy said, coming over and hugging her sister. She pulled away, looking down at her sister with a small frown. "It was a surprise, wasn't it?"

Dawn forced a happy smile. "Of course. I can't believe it. Thank you!" She exclaimed as Willow and Xander both came over to hug her in turn. "I've never had a surprise party before."

Buffy smiled broadly. "I know. And look, we got everything. Cake, decorations, music—" Willow took that as her cue to slip into the living room and turn on the stereo.

"Presents?" Dawn asked.

"Oh, you wanted presents?" Xander joked. "It's not enough that we're all here?"

Dawn forced another smile. As if they were all here. The Scooby gang was now practically boiled down to its primary three members. Dawn wondered if she would be the next one to disappear and leave them finally to themselves.

"We got lots of presents for you, Dawnie," Buffy assured her sister, taking a large butcher's knife from the rack and heading towards the birthday cake. "Well." She frowned, looking up from her work. "Not lots. But several. Several presents. Which is more than the poor kids in China who don't eat their broccoli get."

Buffy, seemingly content with her argument, went back to cutting the cake.

"Ooh! Is it chocolate?" Dawn asked, walking around the island.

"No, it's yellow. Oh! Did you want chocolate?" Buffy asked in a flurry, yanking the knife out of the cake.

"No, no, yellow's fine… chocolate's too rich anyways."

Xander, who had been rummaging around in an upper cupboard, turned around, brandishing a paper box of candles. "Got the candles!"

"I think you're supposed to do the candles first," Dawn commented, eyeing the butchered cake. "And bring it in all lit up when you surprise me with it. Oh, and there should be singing, too."

"Candles?" Buffy's eyes widened. "I forgot the candles! And I already started cutting it," she gestured towards the single piece she had already extracted from the cake.

"It's okay," Xander said pragmatically. "We'll just put them in the rest of the cake." He began counting out the small, whirled, supermarket candles, and Dawn held her breath, praying her wouldn't stop at two. And half-hoping he would, because that would mean that at least they hadn't forgotten. But, no, he didn't even hesitate until there were sixteen candles asymmetrically gracing her birthday cake.

"Will, are you okay?" Xander called out from the upstairs landing. Willow wrenched her gaze out the window of her – no, Buffy's now – room and turned to face him.

"Sorry, I just…"

"Had to get away?"

Willow gave him a small smile from across the room. "Yeah, I… I just haven't been back here since… I just needed to see."

"I get that," Xander said supportively, and stepped towards her. His expression suddenly softened. "Things fall apart," he said softly. "They fall apart so hard."

Willow's eyes widened. "Xander?"

"You can't ever put them back the way they were," he said, and then lifted his shy gaze to meet hers.

"Xander, what are you doing?" Willow demanded, panicked.

"I'm sorry, it's just, you know… it takes time," he said and sighed.

"I know," she said carefully, watching him from across the room.

"There's just so much to work through," he said, and looked tired at the thought. "Trust has to build again, on both sides. You have to learn if we're even the same people we were, if you can fit in each others' lives. It's a long and important process and… can we just skip it?"

Willow stared back at him, not sure who was talking to her. Was it really Xander? Or was it Tara, trying to reach her from the world beyond? Maybe using Xander's body as a vessel for her beautiful spirit?

"Can you just be kissing me?" he entreated desperately.

Suddenly it didn't matter who or what was talking to her. She was being given a chance to relive the best moment of her life. She strode quickly across the room and took Xander into her arms, tilting her face up and launching her lips at his. 

She put everything she had into that kiss. Every regret, every missed memory. Every ounce of love she still felt for her lost lover. The kiss was wild and desperate and passionate. Lonely but oh, so sweet… She finally came up for breath and felt cold tears running down her cheeks. Then she leaned in to kiss him again.

"Guys, something weird's going on."

Dawn looked up from the coffee table of presents Buffy was arranging for her.

"Something's really wrong," Xander continued. Willow followed him into the room, ashen-faced.

"What is it?" Buffy asked, pushing down a suspicious bow to make sure it stuck.

Xander sat across from her on the couch and said in hushed tones: "Tara's still here."

Willow sat down silently next to him.

"What do you mean?" Dawn demanded.

Xander leaned forward, his eyes wide, still disbelieving the whole situation. "Just upstairs, Will and I, we were talking and suddenly, I was channeling Tara. I was like possessed by her."

"You think she's a ghost?" Buffy asked.

"Well, she was…" Xander shot an apologetic look at Willow, who still looked partially nauseated. "Killed here. Violently. Maybe she has issues."

"So she was a ghost and she was possessing you?"

"Yeah, like all of a sudden I was her and thinking all her thoughts and feeling her feelings and saying things to Willow that gave me a major case of the wiggins—no offense, Will."

She nodded tightly.

"So she possessed you and you started acting out something that happened before? Was it…" Buffy paused, glancing quickly at Willow. "Her murder?"

"No," Willow answered quietly. "It was a good time."

"Oh, so…" Buffy trailed off.

"So we need to do an exorcism, before, you know, she has wasps swarming the house," Xander said.

"What?" Dawn asked.

"You know, the old high school, the Sadie Hawkins teacher-icide?"

"Do you think she's been trapped here all these months?" Willow asked suddenly. She turned big sad eyes to Buffy. "Do you think she's been here when she should have been in heaven?"

Buffy stood up abruptly and paced across the living room carpet.

"We need to help her," Willow continued desperately. "I have some supplies at Xander's place and I can do the spell tonight. But then, last time it didn't even work. So maybe we should try and talk to her first."

"No," Dawn interrupted softly. "It's not Tara."

All three Scoobies stared at her.

"The same thing happened last night," she continued hesitantly. "To me."

"Tara possessed you, too?" Xander asked.

"No," Dawn said and Buffy looked away. "The same thing happened but it wasn't Tara. It can't be Tara here because she wouldn't know… no. It wasn't Tara."

"Are you sure?" Xander frowned in confusion. "Because I was Tara back there."

Willow nodded. "It was Tara. It had to be. No one else could have known what happened."

Dawn sighed. "I'm not saying it wasn't Tara there, but I don't think it was really Tara. Last night with Spike—"

"Spike?" Xander jumped in. "What did he do now?"

"Nothing!" Buffy exclaimed, rejoining the group. "He didn't do—nothing happened."

"Why was he here then?" he demanded.

"Dawn was possessed by something that made her…" Buffy met her sister's eyes carefully.

"Reenact something he did," Dawn finished for her.

"Oh," Willow said, furrowing her brow. "So… it wasn't just Tara then?"

"No and I don't think it was Spike, either. I think it was something else," Buffy said.

Xander let out a long breath. "So we're just talking run of the mill hellmouthy stuff then?"

Buffy nodded, her eyes still on her sister.

"So what did Dawn reenact?" Willow asked.

"Nothing," Dawn answered, aware of her sister's agitation. "Nothing important just… regular ol' conversation." She finished her sentence with forced cheer.

Willow stood up. "I should get back home and research this."

Buffy frowned. "I thought the books were, you know… gone?"

"Giles sent me some from England and I still have my trusty old computer." Willow shrugged into her jacket, and Xander followed her into the front hall, casually touching her shoulder in support.

"Sorry Dawnie." Willow turned back to the teenager. "I wish we didn't have to leave early on your birthday and all, but research calls."

Dawn forced a half-smile. "It's okay."

"We'll make it up to you," Xander promised. "I guess all Summers birthdays are cursed."

"See you later, guys," Buffy called out after her friends. She turned back to Dawn. "So… you want some more cake or do you want to start with the presents?"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_The next morning_

"So the witch is back." Spike rose from a crouch in the corner of what Willow assumed was 'his' room in the school basement. He strode to her, his eyes piercing. "Why is the witch back?"

Willow gulped. Between the vampire's intense stare, the major hellmouthy vibes and the general creepiness that came from being underground in poorly lit basements, she was starting to regret her decision to come back here. After her research session last night, which had lasted into the wee hours of the morning and still turned up nothing, Willow had decided to try the Scoobies' sometime informant. Even if he was currently not all there. But seeing him now, she suddenly felt shallow and guilty for trying to use him, when he obviously needed her help. So she changed tactics.

"I'm here to help you," she said, crossing her arms self-consciously across her chest.

"Help me?" He cackled loudly, and doubled over, either in pain or mirth, into a crouch on the dirty concrete floor.

"Yes," she said, more firmly this time. "Help you. So tell me what happened to you, and what's going on."

"Buffy--the slayer—she sent you?" Spike asked.

"No," Willow said, noticing that his eyes seemed to fall in disappointment. "But," she added quickly. "I'm sure she would have if she knew how… bad it was down here."

Spike aimed a sad, self-deprecating smile up at her. "No," he said softly, resignedly. "She wouldn't."

"Well, uh…" Willow tried to brighten her voice. "So, tell me what's going on, because I'm sensing mucho bad energies down here. What happened to you?"

"Uh, uh, uh." Spike stood up and stretched his lean body. "You want to play the games I play, but are you willing to pay the entrance fee?"

"I already have," Willow said firmly. She deliberately stepped in his path so that he was forced to look up at her. "And I think you know that."

"The boy you killed," Spike said in remembrance, staring back at her. "Ripped the skin from his bones, you did."

"I did," she said, her voice shaking only slightly.

"So how'd it taste?" He asked, and then shook his head. "'S a shame the only one you killed was so old. Children's blood, now that's the best."

"What?"

"Oh, yeah," he continued, focusing his eyes now on some point behind her. "Little babies, they're the greatest delicacies on earth. Like veal and honey."

"Babies?" Her upper lip curled in revulsion.

"You ever wonder why something so horrid could taste so good? One of the mysteries of the bloody universe, I s'pose. Little babies, tots not yet old enough to run away from my true face—"

"Wait… are you saying that you feel bad about it? Do you feel guilty?"

"Sometimes they didn't even cry, didn't know. They never knew, never saw it coming," Spike continued, oblivious to Willow's scrutiny. He was lost in retrospect. "The older ones, the parents, they always knew. Always ran, always screamed, always—but the babies, how they trusted you—"

"You have to tell me what's going on, Spike," Willow interrupted forcefully, taking a step towards him. He shaded his face with a pale hand. "You never felt guilty before."

"They trusted you up until the moment that you broke their tiny necks, twisted their heads with a quick turn of your wrist, squeezed and air from their lungs and suckled their blood when they should have been suckling at their mother's breasts—"

"You're starting to sound like Angel."

"But their mothers were dead at your feet, blood drained, their faces blue and purple. There was no milk left in their breasts, none at all. And--"

"You got your soul back, didn't you? That's what changed?"

Spike stopped his tirade abruptly, mid-sentence, and lowered his hands from his face. "Well, yeah. Thought she told you."

"What? You mean it's true?" Willow stepped forward again, and knelt in front of him. She stared the vampire wonderingly. "You do… I thought… What happened, were you cursed? Do you still have the chip?"

Spike just stared back at her. "She didn't tell you?" he asked, his voice small.

"No, no one told me. Who would have—oh… Buffy? Is it Buffy? She knows, too?" Spike dropped his head back between his legs and Willow looked at him in pity. "Well, I mean, I'm sure she had reasons for not telling anyone."

"Yeah," he said morosely.

"But you're…" Willow shook her head and blinked, focusing her eyes back on the crumpled vampire in the corner. "Why are you here? In the basement of the school, in the hellmouth of all places. Especially now that you have a soul."

He shook his head, not looking up at her.

"I mean, you lived above-ground all the time. In your crypt – why aren't you there?"

"'S Clem's now."

"Well, I'm sure he wouldn't mind—"

"No."

"Okay, well how about—"

"There's no where else to go." He sighed, and seemed to crumple even further into himself.

"Well, you can't stay here," Willow insisted, and gestured around her at the dilapidated walls and dusty pipes. "I'm sensing majorly bad mojo – I think the proximity to the hellmouth has got to be what's making you crazy."

"Doesn't matter."

"It does," she insisted, her voice rising. "How are you ever going to earn redemption or make up for anything if you're stuck down here in the basement talking to figments of your imagination all day?"

"Don't want redemption," he said quietly. "S'not for me. Redemption's a dream for the birds flying high." He raised his head slowly, his blue eyes pale and soft as he looked at Willow sadly. "All the perfumes in bloody Arabia couldn't cover up the smell of blood on these hands."

"Hamlet," Willow said, the intellectual in her answering automatically.

Spike eyed her in askance. "Macbeth," he corrected. Apparently he had an intellectual inside of him too.

"Oh. Well, still… Spike. You can't think those things. You have to believe that you can change, make a difference, or else it's all for… I mean, I tried to destroy the world last spring and I'm going to find a way to make up for it. You never did anything even that terrible."

"Sixty thousand, four hundred and fifty-eight."

"What?" She frowned.

"Number of people I've killed, pet."

"You actually kept track?" She shook her head. "Never mind. You didn't have a soul then."

"So that's the crux then, eh?" He met her eyes steadily. "Why worry about redemption at all then, love, if the bloody soul's my get out of jail free card."

"Well, it's—"

"You don't know. You can't." Spike rolled his eyes skywards. "All because my broody grandsire wouldn't take the responsibility. Well, I will, Willow. It was me. All of it. Every scream, every last drop of blood, it was me an' I remember it all like a hundred and twenty bloody years passed yesterday. I ain't some multiple personality psychosis case either. 'S no demon here, no soul, just me."

Willow frowned in consternation. "But you're different, Spike. I mean, I can see it. A few months ago you wouldn't have felt guilty about anything."

"Felt guilty 'bout one thing."

She cocked her head. Spike gave a loud sigh and started The Story.****


	4. Part Three

**Part Three**

_One Week Later_

Willow sat down cross-legged in front of him and said: "They're not haunting you, you know."

"What?" Spike raised his head, and looked at her askew.

"They're not here," she said, gesturing around them. "Not out here, inside your head or anywhere for that matter. They're all at peace now. And have been for years. Decades."

"You don't know that," he said, a sob choking up his voice in a manner Willow knew all too well.

She offered him her trademark Willow smile, part comfort, part reassurance, part innocent trust in the world and fate. Her smile hadn't changed in years. "Witch, remember? I did a sweep spell to detect spirits. None here. You're all clean."

"But I see them, they're all here, and they're all—"

"It's not them," she said confidently. "It's all in your mind. But…" she bit her lip. "You need to get out of here. You need to get away from the hellmouth. I was right. Its energies are affecting you."

"Then who's pointing at me?" he demanded, ignoring her last statement.

"What?"

"Who's pointing at me right now?" Spike demanded desperately. He stood up pinched the bridge of his nose to keep the tears from falling. "Then who's looking at me and yelling and telling me to—"

"Spike," Willow stood alongside him and reached out to touch his arm in comfort. He flinched away from her touch.

"You want to know what it felt like?"

Willow nodded, unsure what he was talking about.

"Was like myself, from century ago appeared and learned everything I did. And… I think he cried for me, Willow.

"No, not for me," he amended. "Because of me. Back then, I didn't have a thing going for myself. Was a bloody awful poet – s'where the nickname comes from, William the Bloody they called me. Wasn't too rich, or too smart, but--" He looked at her desperately, entreatingly. "I was a good man."

"Oh, Spike." She had to physically stop herself before trying to touch him again. Willow had been coming to visit him almost every day for the past week and despite her questioning, he hadn't said a word about the soul. He had told her what had happened with Buffy, and why he went to Africa, but had never talked about how he got it or what it felt like.

"S'all I had going for me. I was a good man. And now s'like I woke up after a long sleep and… and I'm not a good man anymore."

Willow felt her own tears start to fall down her cheeks.

"Imagine that, eh? You going to sleep one night and wake up the next morning with the knowledge that your murdered half of Europe and there's not a bloody thing you can do to change any of it. Because it's too late. It's always too damn late."

"It's not," Willow insisted.

He looked at her in confusion.

"It can't be too late, ever. Until it's over, I have to believe that we can change, and we can make up for the things we've done." Willow was silent for a moment, surprised at her own words, and even more surprised to realize that she believed them. She smiled a little more broadly at Spike. "Come on, get your stuff, we're getting out of here."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_That evening_

"Hey, Will!" Xander called out, dropping his keys onto the front table as he entered the apartment. Willow was at her usual position at the kitchen table, surrounded by arcane books and her trusty laptop.

"Xander," she greeted him nervously. "Um, I think you need to know—"

But Xander had already seen the black and white figure resting on his couch. On _his couch. He seethed. "Willow, what is __that doing here?"_

"Shhh!" Willow grabbed his hand and lead him into the kitchen. Xander followed reluctantly.

"What is Deadboy doing sleeping on my couch?" Xander demanded angrily.

She shushed him again. "Xander, be quiet. You won't believe what I had to do to get him to go to sleep. I don't think he's really slept or ate in weeks."

"Well, excuse me if that doesn't touch my heart." Xander headed back out towards the living room, but Willow stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Look, I needed to get him out of the hellmouth. It's doing something to his mind, making him crazy, and this is the only place I could keep an eye on him to make sure he didn't go back."

"And why are we supposed to care whether his mind gets warped or not? Excuse me if I don't feel like harboring a would-be rapist in my apartment!"

Willow narrowed her eyes dangerously. "And what about a would-be serial killer? A would-be mass murderer?"

He looked confused.

"Xander, I tried to end the world. I did my best to hand a gruesome, violent death to billions of people. To children, to babies, without a thought or a care about any suffering by my own."

"That's different—"

"What, because you stopped me? Because I feel remorse? Well, news flash, Spike feels remorse, too. Probably more so than I can even comprehend." She shook her head. "Look, I know this isn't really my place to tell you this, but do you know what Spike did after he realized what he'd almost done?"

"What, regretted that he didn't go through with it?" Xander said acerbically, earning himself another glare.

"He went out and got a soul. He earned a soul, Xander. And that's why he's different. That's why he feels remorse. The least he deserves from us is the benefit of a doubt."

Xander sunk down onto a kitchen stool. "Deadboy has a soul?"

"Can you stop calling him that?" Willow asked, and then realized she was getting sidetracked. "Yes, he has a soul. And a chip. So you really don't need to worry about him."

"This doesn't change anything," Xander said defensively.

"Look, I know this is your apartment and I really have no right to ask you to accept him staying here, but he has nowhere else to go. Neither do I."

Xander stared at her for a moment and then shook his head, sighing loudly. "Just make sure he doesn't get blood on the furniture."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_Next Morning_

Xander let out a loud yawn as he twisted open the living room blinds. He headed towards the kitchen but halfway there he stopped and sniffed. There was the putrid smell of something… burning. He whirled around quickly and saw Spike, shirtless on the couch. Just sitting there. Sitting there as the bright light coming through the slats in the blinds burned horizontal lines into his alabaster skin. Xander watched, frozen in place, as the vampire's flesh began to blister and smoke.

After a moment, something snapped inside of him and he sprinted across the room to yank the blinds shut.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

Spike just shrugged and Xander peered at him, taking a closer look at his chest. Not only was it covered in horizontal burns but even in the dark Xander could make out criss-crossing lacerations marring the pale skin.

"What the--" Xander stuttered in confusion. "You do this to yourself, don't you? Man, that is so… wrong."

Spike laughed a little, maniacally. "Mate, _I'm wrong. Told me so yourself coupla times, if I remember."_

"You've really gone crazy, you know that?"

He laughed again, a strange cackling that almost made Xander pity him. The thought of feeling sympathy for Spike angered him, though, so he lashed out.

"So this is your great atonement? You get a soul and lock yourself up in a basement until Willow finally takes pity on you and drags you out? Is that how you want to earn your forgiveness? Because, news flash, it isn't working."

Spike turned to him with startlingly clear eyes. "There's no forgiveness out there for me." He laughed then. "No forgiveness, no rest, no… why the bloody hell did I do it?" he demanded, standing up and storming across the room to the window. "What's the point? Get a bloody soul? Why? Doesn't help. Just makes it worse. I didn't want to feel anymore and now all I do is feel."

Xander was beginning to grow uncomfortable at the tears welling up in the Spike's eyes. He inched backwards, towards the kitchen.

"I understand it all now," Spike said softly, staring at the blinds. He reached out one hand and started to separate the slats to peer through. At the sight of smoke, Xander slapped his hand away angrily.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Xander demanded, genuinely disturbed. Spike turned.

"I see it all so clearly now," Spike said softly, meeting Xander's eyes. "So clearly."

"What?" Buffy demanded, turning sharply in the passenger seat to face Xander. "Tell me I just heard you wrong because I thought you just said—"

"Spike's staying in my apartment. Yeah, yeah, I know. Of course, it wasn't my idea, but Willow didn't want to leave him down in the hellmouth, what with his shiny new soul and all."

"What?" It was Dawn's turn to be shocked. "Xander… did you just say soul?"

"Yeah. My new roommate: Soulboy Jr." Xander shook his head, as if he himself still didn't believe it.

"Spike has a soul," Dawn repeated.

Xander nodded.

"Why?"

Xander frowned at her in the review mirror. "Why what? He just… does. There's no why."

"Was he cursed or did he do it deliberately or what?" Dawn asked. "And why did you let him into your apartment? He's dangerous."

"Well, besides being a little crazy in the head, and with a new unhealthy draw to early morning sunlight, he seemed fine to me." Xander tapped the steering wheel. "Well, not fine, exactly, because we're still talking about our favorite peroxided pest here, but Will can take care of him."

"That's what Buffy said," Dawn muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Buffy asked sharply.

"Nothing."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_Later that morning_

Buffy drew a circle on the top sheet of her post-it note pad. Then she drew a line coming down, branching into two even legs at the bottom. She pulled her ballpoint pen across the paper to make arms, spread outward, and then drew a stout cross behind her stick-figure.

She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a yellow highlighter. She squiggled its broad tip around the top and back of the circular head. Then she cocked her head back to look at it.

_Pants, she decided. __It needs pants. She grabbed the black pen and was about to add a pair of tight jeans, when a voice came from behind her._

"Didn't know you were religious."

"I was just, uh…" She yanked the top post-it note off the pad and shoved it into her khaki pants pocket. She faced the principal with a sheepish smile. "Just waiting for my next appointment."

Principal Wood looked at her seriously. "You better take a seat, Buffy."

"I am sitting."

The principal's plump blond secretary Mrs. Thomas peeked in from behind him. "Nobody's here to blame you, Buffy. But this is serious. You need help."

"What?" Buffy demanded, whirling around in her chair. What was going on? What had she done wrong? Was this about the soda machine incident? Well, it had legitimately swallowed her dollar bill, there really wasn't any—

"We know he's alive. It would appear that you've been hiding him and you've lied to us," Principal Wood continued seriously. He reached up to take his glasses off, but, not finding anything there, lowered his hand in confusion.

"What? Who's alive? What are you talking about?" she demanded, pushing her chair back into the wall as she stood up. Spike. It must be Spike. But how could they even know? And why would they even care? "It's not what you think," Buffy said weakly, backing into the wall.

"I hope not. Because I think you're harboring a vicious killer," Ms. Maple, the tardy window processor, said, crowding into the small cubicle doorway.

 "This isn't about attacking Buffy," Mrs. Thomas chastised Ms. Maple. "Remember, 'I' statements only. 'I feel angry.' 'I feel worried.'"

Buffy felt a case of déjà vu whirling around in her stomach. Where had she heard this before?

"Fine. Here's one. I feel worried – about me!" One of the janitors, whose name still eluded Buffy, shoved his way into the crowded cubicle.

"But he's better now," Buffy said absently, still trying to place this scene.

"Better for how long, Buffy?" Ms. Maple demanded, her thin lips set in a prim line. "I mean, did you even think about that?"

"What is this?" Buffy asked angrily. "I don't need an intervention here."

"Oh, don't you?" Principal Wood raised his dark eyebrows. "You must've known it was wrong seeing Angel or you wouldn't have hidden it from all of us."

"God!" Buffy exclaimed. She finally recognized the scene. It was the intervention Giles, Willow and Xander had staged for her when they had discovered that Angel was back. "Stop it! Can't you see you're acting out a scene? This isn't you. You have no idea what you're talking about."

"What gives you the right to suck face with your demon lover again?" the janitor demanded.

"Shut up! Just stop this!" Buffy yelled.

"What, you just tripped and fell on his lips?" Ms. Maple demanded acerbically.

"No!" Buffy yelled.

"Buffy, I feel that when it comes to him, you can't see straight," Mrs. Thomas said in an attempt at comfort. "And that's why we're all going to help you through this."

"God! I don't need help! Just stop this stupid reenactment thing! Stop it right now!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_That afternoon_

"Buffy." Anya enunciated the slayer's name carefully, staring at the short blonde standing outside her apartment doorway.

"Anya, look, I know you probably don't want to see me, but I need to talk to you."

Buffy took a step forward, but Anya didn't move away to let her enter. "Are you back for some more verbal abuse? Or perhaps a little demon slaying?  Convenient, since you know where I live and all."

"What?" Buffy frowned in confusion. "You don't really think I'd be here to kill you, do you?"

"Why don't you tell me what I'm supposed to think," Anya prompted her. Buffy sighed wearily.

"Anya, is this about that night? We had an argument, that's all. I'm just here to see if you know anything about the demoney-possession thingy."

"Oh, is that all?" Anya's grip on the doorknob tensed. "Well, then, I suppose everything is okay. Why don't we just kiss and make up and we'll be the bestest of friends. Not. Did you forget that I'm not in your exclusive little Scooby club anymore?"

"Anya—"

"No." Anya stomped her foot down. "Good-bye, Buffy."

She shut the door in the slayer's face. 

Buffy was sitting at the kitchen table, poking at her bowl of salad when she heard the front door bang open.

"Buffy!" Dawn yelled. Buffy cringed at the sound. Why did everyone have to be so loud when she had a headache? She sighed and raised her eyes.

Her sister burst into the kitchen, cheeks flushed and breathing heavy. "What's wrong?" Buffy immediately demanded, jerking to action. "Are you being chased?"

"No," Dawn said between gulps of air. She dropped her backpack onto the kitchen floor with a thud. Buffy figured it wasn't the time to nag her about picking up after herself.

"Then what's wrong?" Buffy asked, headache forgotten as adrenaline surged through her veins.

"Out—outside." Dawn pointed towards the door, leaning forward to catch her breath.

Buffy gave her a small frown and walked towards the front window in the living room.

"Oh my god," Buffy said, taking a step backwards from the scene. Then she narrowed her eyes. "Is that our mail carrier?"

"And the gas meter inspector lady," Dawn said breathlessly, coming up behind her.

"Wow, um…" Buffy cocked her head.

"It's got to be the possession thing, right? They're reenacting something?"

"Um, yeah, I guess so," Buffy said, staring outside so she wouldn't have to meet her sister's eyes.

"I mean, why else would they be humping against our tree in broad daylight," Dawn continued. "Though it's kind of disturbing that that happened at all in our front yard."

"Yeah…" Buffy agreed noncommittally.

Dawn cocked her head with a small frown. "That can't be too comfortable. With the tree bark and all."

"It's not too bad--I mean, not that I would know," Buffy amended quickly. "I would just imagine, you know, what with the… one probably wouldn't notice the scratches on one's back until later."

Dawn shot her a strange look but didn't say anything. Then her eyes widened in horror. "Is this rape?"

"What?" Buffy demanded, whirling around to face her sister. "No, of course not."

"I just mean…" Dawn explained, her voice trembling. "They're being made to do things that neither of them wants—isn't that like the definition of rape?"

"Um, I guess so normally, but this is a little different—" But before she could finish her sentence Dawn had already sprinted out the front door. Buffy followed her more slowly and watched as her sister ran up to the uniformed couple in the front yard.

"Stop this!" Dawn screamed, her voice high and panicked. "Stop!"

When she didn't get a response from the mail carrier or the meter inspector, she reached out and tried to yank the mailman back. "Stop this!" she screamed again.

The mailman, a middle-aged man with graying brows, turned and frowned at her, but didn't stop pumping into the meter inspector, whose uniform pants were unbuttoned and pooled at her thighs.

"Stop right now!" Dawn cried, trying again to pull him off. Buffy, noticing how agitated her sister was, approached the unlikely couple, gripped the blue cloth of the mailman's shirt, and pulled him backwards and away from the woman. She shoved him back several feet across the yard.

"Hey!" the mailman cried out, and then stared at Buffy and Dawn in confusion. "What's going on?"

"Oh, my Lord." The meter inspector lady hurried pulled up her pants and buttoned them. "Please excuse me." She ran in the other direction.

The mail carrier watched her run, and then quickly picked up his fallen mailbag, stuffing stray letters back in, and hurried away from the yard, fly still hanging open.

Buffy turned to Dawn, noticing hot tears streaking down her reddened cheeks.

"Dawnie, honey, are you okay?" she asked, trying to make her voice as soothing as she could. She put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Dawnie, it's over. We stopped them."

Dawn wiped away her tears quickly and looked at her sister. "I know, I just… It's okay." She visibly tried to calm herself as pushed past Buffy back into the house.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_One week later_

"_You want to go to Homecoming with __me?" Dawn repeated incredulously. She gripped her locker door as if it was her lifeline, the sharp metal edges cutting into her palm._

"Uh, yeah," Brian said, and gave her a quick smile. "I mean, we had fun at the Bronze that one time and I was thinking, you know, we might have fun at the dance together." He looked at her intently. "Unless you didn't have fun?"

"No, no. Fun was had. Lots of fun." Dawn forced herself to smile, thoughts whirling around her mind. Brian was asking _her to Homecoming. She looked into his light blue eyes and suddenly noticed how much they looked like Spike's. Bad. Bad thoughts. "I'd, uh… sure."_

"What?" he asked.

"I mean, yeah, sure, I'll go." She tried to smile again, but was afraid it must have turned out more like a grimace. Brian didn't seem to notice, though, because he smiled back broadly. "Of course I'll go. Fun. It'll be fun."

"Great. We'll talk later okay? This is my last year here so my parents want to go all out with a limo and everything."

Dawn nodded, trying to mentally record everything he was saying so that she could go over what it meant later. Right now it sure felt like English wasn't her first language.

"I'll see you around." He gave her another smile before turning and walking back down the hall.

Dawn exhaled, trying to relax, though her heart was pounding in her ears. She looked down at her hand, and slowly extracted it from her locker door. Beads of blood rose on her palm where the sharp edges had cut her. She felt similar drops start to well in her eyes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_That night_

"Now you'll die!"

Buffy raised her eyebrows at the vampire's last words before he collapsed into ashes. She shook her head as she leaned down to pick up her stake.

"They never do get any smarter, do they?"

Buffy turned around to see Anya, who must have just teleported there, standing behind her in the empty, dark graveyard.

"Yeah, well, I guess with the lack of blood flow to the brain…" Buffy shrugged. "What's up?"

"We're even."

"What?"

Anya strode towards her. "Look, here's the way I figure it. You were mean to me, and then I was mean to you, so we're even now, right? We can just forget about the whole thing."

"Um… okay." Buffy stuffed her stake into her waistband.

"So how are you?" Anya asked, smiling broadly. Buffy raised her eyebrows.

"Fine," she said, and began to move forward through the tombstones. She had seen an obituary that morning for Locker. Or Lacker. Lackert. That was it.

Anya strode around her and stood in her way. "Now you're supposed to ask me how I am."

"I am?"

"That's the way it's done. Or so I've been told." Anya suddenly looked unsure of herself. "Do you not want to know how I am?"

"No, I do. How are you, Anya?"

"Good." She smiled, pleased with herself. "Well, not good actually, but that's how you're supposed to answer. Good or okay or fine. All acceptable responses."

"Anya, stop. What's wrong?"

"You know the 'possession thingy' you talked about?" Anya wrung her hands. "Well it just happened to me and I didn't like it."

"What happened?"

"I was at the police station, helping this officer out with a wish. It was quite brilliant really—"

"Anya," Buffy interrupted. "Really not needing the details."

"Oh, right." Anya seemed to catch herself. "Anyways, we were taking a shortcut to the station through this alley and suddenly she throws me on the ground and starts punching me!"

Buffy flinched. No, no, no… this wasn't happening.

"Can you believe it? But I think she was possessed because her eyes were suddenly all glazed over and she was calling me a soulless demon—I have a soul, she should have known that."

Buffy nodded wordlessly.

"It was so terrible. It must have been some kind of domestic abuse because I really felt like I loved her the whole time she was punching me—and, let me tell you, it hurt like hell!" Anya shook her head. "We vengeance demons heal quickly, but we still feel pain, you know."

"You… you said you loved her?" Buffy asked hesitantly.

Anya nodded. "I wish I knew who had been in that position in the first place, because I'd be happy to grant her with as many wishes as she wanted. She has a need for vengeance if there has ever been one."

"Oh," Buffy said. "Well, you said she called you a demon?"

"Could have been a figure of speech." Anya waved it away. "I figure it was probably a husband and wife. You know, it's this kind of thing that got me into the vengeance business in the first place. People who are hurt by the people they love? That's the worst kind of pain."

"Yeah," Buffy agreed distantly, her stomach roiling.

"So I need you to stop the reenactment spell."

"Um, we're trying," Buffy said, trying to focus her blurry vision. "Willow's researching around the clock and I guess Sp… Spike's even helping her too."

"Well, they better fix it soon, because it's not fun."

"No," Buffy agreed quietly. She stared down at the cold night grass under her feet. "No, it's not."

"Giles!" Willow exclaimed into the receiver. Spike, seated across the table, surrounded by arcane chronicles, looked up in mild curiosity. "No, now is fine. Spike and I were just—yes, I said Spike… No, not like that. Spike," she hissed, covering the mouthpiece. "Can I tell him?"

Spike shrugged. He didn't care.

"Giles? You should sit down for this… No, no one's back from the dead… Yes, I understand why you might think that… No, I'm not offended. Giles. Spike has a soul." Willow met Spike's eyes and waited a beat. Then frowned. "Of course I'm sure… no, I'm not even sure if the curse would work on any vampire besides Angel. But, no, he sought it out last summer… Yeah, pretty amazing, huh?" She gave Spike a thumbs-up sign, which he ignored and turned back to his books. Willow frowned. "Yeah, we're actually having a 'spot' of trouble with our latest big bad. It's like this spell. It's making people re-enact things from the past… That'd be great. Yeah, it's not showing up on any of the magick detection spells I've done.

"No, things are good." Willow settled back into her chair. "Spike's been helping a lot. Who'd have guessed he knew so many archaic languages?... Definitely… No, he's staying here with us. With me and Xander… Um… yeah, sure. I guess so." She leaned across the table and handed the telephone over to Spike. "Giles wants to talk to you."

Spike raised his eyebrows but took the receiver without a word. "'Lo," he said.

"Spike, I trust you are doing well?"

_What the bloody hell? "What is this about, watcher?" he demanded into the phone._

"Well, in light of this recent revelation… I must admit, I am a bit shocked."

"Yeah, well, I s'pose I've finally joined the ranks of poofterdom. Anything else you wanted?"

"Willow said you sought your soul out. What would have made you finally want to do something like that?"

"Figured it was time for a change, s'all." Spike laughed hollowly. "Couldn't be soulless forever, now, could I?"

"How are you… how are you dealing with it, Spike? It must be unimaginably hard, remembering everything you've done these past hundred years."

"No, it's fucking peaches and cream. Now tell me what you want to know so I can get the bloody hell off this stupid contraption."

"Spike," Giles said patiently. "I just wanted to tell you that if you needed any help, you can feel free to come to me."

"Oh, thanks for that. Thanks a bloody lot for that!" Spike yelled and slammed down the 'off' button on the telephone. He saw Willow cringe from across the table and he sighed.

Buffy was making her way straight upstairs, beeline to the bathroom, after she got home from slaying, when she heard quiet sobbing from Dawn's room.

She flashed back uneasily to the day she found Dawn huddled in the corner staring at Tara's body and she immediately rushed uninvited into her sister's room. Glancing around quickly, she took inventory. No dead bodies. Check. Dawn's not hurt. Check. Nothing triggering her spidey sense. Check. She turned to her sister.

Dawn was seated on her bedspread, clutching a red-black formal dress in her hands. _Of course, Buffy thought irritably before she could stop herself, __Dawn would cry on dry-clean-only material._

"Dawnie, what's wrong?"

Dawn sniffled. "Nothing. It's all right."

Buffy gave her a sympathetic smile, and lowered her stake. Hiking up her detestable Doublemeat palace pants, she sat down at the foot of her sister's bed. "Okay, what's really wrong?"

"Brian asked me to homecoming," she confessed, and choked back another sob.

Brian? Buffy wracked her brain. Dawn was talking like she should have known who he was. She had probably been talking non-stop about him for weeks. And Buffy probably hadn't even noticed. There was nothing left to do but confess: "Who's Brian?"

"Oh, no one." Dawnn laughed a little maniacally and Buffy was brought back unpleasantly to the memory of crazy-soul-having-Spike's laughs. "Okay, not no one. Only the senior basketball star that I've been crushing on since like the first day of school."

Damn. Buffy probably should have known that. Well, better late than never. "The one you were dancing with at the Bronze?" Dawn nodded. "Well, isn't it a good thing, then, that he asked you?"

"Yeah, it would've been, like two weeks ago." Dawn laughed again and Buffy cringed. 

"What happened a week ago? Did someone else ask you?" Buffy asked. She hoped not. That would mean that there was yet another thing she had failed to notice in her sister's life.

Dawn frowned at her. "You don't remember?"

Buffy tried to jog her memory. "Your birthday party?"

"The… bathroom." 

"Oh. Oh!" Buffy got it. Kind of. Not really. "But what does that have to do with Homecoming? We'll take care of this weird possession demon, that shouldn't have to interfere with your social life. Especially not with the cute basketball hunk."

Dawn sobbed again, holding up the material of the dress to her face.

"Dawn?" Buffy reached out and stroked her sister's shoulder. "Tell me what's going on."

"You don't understand, do you?" she asked through her tears. "Buffy, the _bathroom. I was there. I know what happened."_

Buffy was struggling to catch up to her sister's thought process, but to no avail. "Dawn," she said carefully, "What happened there was terrible and I'm so sorry that you had to know about it. But it was between me and Spike—it doesn't have anything to do with you."

"It has everything to do with me," Dawn argued. "I wasn't just acting it out. It was like it _was me. I felt everything he felt. And everything he did to you. And…" she took a deep breath. "Everything you did to him."_

_Oh, God, no. She yanked her hand away from her sister. "Everything?" Buffy asked in a small voice, dreading the worst._

"No, not details, or any pictures or anything, just… feelings, emotions… Everything he must have been thinking about at the time." Dawn shook her head. "You didn't know that was a part of it?"

"No." Buffy shook her head. "It, the possession thing, hasn't happened to me. At least not yet. I mean, Xander said it was pretty intense, but…"

"Yeah, that's the word for it." Dawn looked back down at the ragged material of her dress, fingering it intently.

"I really am sorry you had to go through that. You, of all people, shouldn't have had to. I'd do anything to take it away," Buffy said.

Dawn nodded. "I know, but… it's too late… and now I know."

"Know what?"

She looked upwards, her watery eyes meeting Buffy's. "What people do to each other."


	5. Part Four

**Part Four**

_Next day_

Xander didn't care for Spike. He didn't like him, didn't give a shit whether he lived or died. But he set his alarm for five-thirty every morning so he would be up and ready to prevent Spike from finding the sunrise.

Xander headed towards the kitchen, wearing his usual plaid pajama pants and a thin Lolita Gentleman's Club t-shirt. The one that Anya never used to let him wear. He was well aware of the vampire's wary stare as he passed by where he sat stonily on the couch. They never spoke about it, but he was sure that Spike somehow knew what roused Xander out of bed so early.

He took the pre-ground coffee from the freezer and poured it into the filter. He always made a half-pot of cheap, grocery store coffee for himself and then cleaned the pot and put in fancy flavored Starbucks decaf for Willow, so it would be ready for her by the time she woke up. Xander liked to picture Willow drifting out of sleep, waking up to the smell of vanilla cocoa bean. He wondered if maybe she smiled drowsily and was truly happy for a few moments before she remembered who she was and what she had done. He certainly hoped so.

He didn't offer Spike coffee and the vampire never asked for it. This new souled version didn't like human food, didn't touch anything except pig's blood; even then, only if Willow supervised. Otherwise, he'd pour it down the sink when her back was turned.

Xander flipped on the coffeemaker power switch and headed back across the living room to the front door, still aware of but not disturbed by Spike's silent stare. He opened the door and retrieved today's issue of the Sunnydale Times.

He sat down in the armchair and leafed through the paper, extracting the comics and sports sections before dropping the rest on the coffee table. After Anya had first left, Xander hadn't even been able to even open the morning's paper. It reminded him too much of Anya – her passionate perusal of the business section. How excited she became about intricacies of the stock market. Qualities Xander had loved about her but would never understand.

For the first few weeks after the failed wedding, he had just let the papers pile up in the hallway, the older ones yellowing and fading. It had been so painful back then, but these days he rarely even thought about Anya. Ever since he had been possessed by Tara that night, his thoughts were on Willow and Willow alone. Her red, red hair, the sound of her laughter, the way she made the whole world disappear every time she smiled. He didn't know whether it was a side effect from the spell or whether his new feelings for her were real, but he did know he could never tell her how he felt and never, ever act on it.

For several minutes the only sounds were of the coffee-maker gurgling and the newspaper crinkling in the dark apartment. Xander gave an involuntarily laugh at the day's Peanuts panel, and looked up to see if Spike had noticed. He half-expected a sarcastic comment from the vampire. Maybe something regarding his 'poofiness,' whatever that meant, or his girly laugh, or his ability to be easily amused. But, as usual, he never got a response.

Xander sighed. This new Spike was silent and almost respectful. His trademark temperamental streak was there, but it was now directed inwards. It was uncomfortable times like these that made Xander almost wish for the old Spike, at least until he remembered Buffy in the bathroom, bruised and betrayed. Then he was grateful for the silence.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_Later that morning_

"Thanks for your help, Anya," Buffy said as they made their way past the rubble to the entrance to the basement. She frowned at a particularly shiny crystal ball smashed to the floor. That couldn't have been cheap. "I don't think I could have found the books in this mess by myself."

Anya sniffed. "Well, I guess if Giles said they'll fix the annoying spell over Sunnydale, I'm more than happy to help. I don't see what you're going to do with them, though. No offense, but research was never your strong point."

"I'm picking them up for Willow, actually," Buffy clarified. She tested the strength of a suspicious-looking step with her toe before following the vengeance demon down the stairs.

"But she's not here," Anya pointed out bluntly.

"I didn't think she needed to see this," Buffy explained. She realized she had said exactly the wrong thing when Anya whirled around on her, eyes flashing.

"Oh no, don't make Willow see the fruits of her labors," she said acerbically. "As long it's one of your precious Scoobies then all is forgiven. But heaven forbid one of us lesser beings steps outside the line."

She shook her head. "Anya," she said, trying to force her voice into a soothing tone. "I don't understand what you're talking about."

"God, you good guys are so dense sometimes!" Anya exclaimed in frustration. She raised her hands in defeat. "I'm talking about all of you busting in on me like the cavalry when one wish goes awry. And I'm talking about leaving Spike to rot in a basement when he gets his soul back for you. And then Willow, who tried to end the whole world just a few short months ago--you try to spare her feelings by not making her see the way she ruined all of our lives!"

"Anya—"

"No, Buffy, listen to me. I think you need to hear this from someone who isn't too busy sucking up to the almighty slayer." She stood there with her hands on her hips, waiting for a reaction from the slayer.

"Um, okay, but…" Buffy was so unsure what to say. Did she mention that she wasn't good at the emotional stuff? And Anya was mad now. Again.

"Buffy," Anya said, advancing so that she was standing right in front of her. Buffy's senses were suddenly inundated by her proximity. How was it that she had never noticed before the beauty of Anya's red, red lips? Or the subtle smell of her expensive perfume? Or her full, perfect breasts…

"You want to marry me?" Anya asked hoarsely.

Buffy stared at her for a moment, and then slapped her across her face. _How dare she try this now__, of all times?_

"Can I take that as a maybe?" Anya asked, desperately trying to put a positive spin on the situation.

"You're proposing to me because we're going to die!" she exclaimed indignantly. "And you think it's romantic and sexy and--and you know you're not going to have to go through with it because the world's going to end!"

"I'm proposing to you, Buffy," Anya said seriously, staring at Buffy with deep brown eyes. Eyes that could make her believe in anything, even love. Eyes that could make her trust even when every rational voice in her head screamed at her not to. "Because it's not."

"You can't know that," Buffy said hesitantly.

"I believe it. I think we're gonna get through this. I think I'm gonna live a long ... and silly life," Anya smiled self-deprecatingly. "And I'm not interested in doing that without you around."

"Oh," Buffy said softly. "Okay."

"Okay?" Anya's eyes widened in shock.

"Yes," Buffy said, almost happily, almost forgetting the world that was crumbling around them. "I mean, yes."

Anya grinned back. She yanked an expensive silver ring from her finger and handed it to Buffy. But the slayer held up her hand in a motion to stop her.

"No."

"No?" Anya faltered. Buffy reached out and touched her hand, closing her fingers around the other woman's slender ones.

"Give it to me when the world doesn't end," she said softly, and their eyes met again. Buffy grasped Anya's head in her hands, tangling her fingers in her soft brown hair, and pulled in to kiss her. Their lips met passionately. Lipstick to lipstick. Softness to softness. Their mouths opened and they joined intimately, passionately. It was such a fire. Buffy felt so safe in Anya's arms, so loved, so secure.

"Buffy?" Anya asked, breathlessly, between hot kisses.

"Yeah?"

"Can we stop now?"

Buffy jerked back, and stared at Anya in disbelief. She wiped at her lips frantically. "Oh, god…"

Anya frowned, hurt. "Well, you don't have to act so repulsed."

"Anya, we were kissing. As in me, you, hot and heavy make out session? You're not seeing anything wrong with this?"

"Well, obviously it was the possession thing," she said haughtily. "But you don't have to be so disgusted by it. I've been told I'm a decent kisser. I mean, I have had over a thousand years experience. Although," she continued, nostalgically. "During most of those years I was more concerned with the evisceration of lips rather than the caress. However--"

"Anya," Buffy interrupted. "That's really beside the point."

"Oh…" Anya said in realization. "I understand."

"Good, because we really need to get back to getting those books for Willow. The sooner she figures out how to put and end to this ridiculous spell the better for all of us." Buffy began digging through a random box.

"It was your first time, wasn't it?"

"What?" Buffy demanded sharply, whirling around to face the other woman.

"It was pretty obvious from that kiss that you haven't had a lot of experience. And now you're questioning your own sexuality. It's very understandable." Anya nodded knowingly.

"What?" she repeated, her eyes widening. "No. No questioning." She turned back to the box she was haphazardly unpacking.

Anya harrumphed. 

"I'm not gay," Buffy said firmly, tossing aside the disfigured remnants of a fertility god statue. "Well, I'm not."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_That afternoon_

 "Are you almost done with _Das Buch der Verstorbenen yet, Spike?" Willow asked absently from behind her laptop. Across the kitchen table, Spike was busily scribbling into a notebook. He didn't stop writing as he spoke._

"Bloody slave driver you are," he complained, but without malice.

Willow grinned back. "Maybe if you'd work a little faster I wouldn't have to be."

"Well, perhaps if you'd actually ordered that medieval German dictionary like you promised then this wouldn't be such a bloody pain."

"What good's a two-hundred-year-old vampire if he can't translate a little German." Willow clicked a few times on her computer to bring up a new internet window.

"Two hundred?" Spike's eyes widened in mock offense. "Do I look that old to you?"

"Well, you do get some pretty serious wrinklies in the forehead region." She went to Yahoo! and searched for a medieval German translation site. "They have creams for that, you know," she continued. "Have you ever considered plastic surgery? Maybe a facelift?"

"Ha bloody ha, witch." He bent back down over the weathered old book. "Don't see why we have to research the bloody Master anyways. Self-righteous old fart he was."

"Well, didn't you see him in the basement?" Willow asked. "Maybe he's the one behind this reenactment spell."

"Saw a lot of people in the basement, Red." He gave her a rakish smile as he continued, "Don't see why we can't research the others. Like that Glory bint. A right bitch she was, but at least she had—Buffy."

"What?" Willow frowned. "She had Buffy?"

"Buffy's here," he said stiffly, his demeanor suddenly shifting. Gone was the relaxed sarcasm and friendliness it had taken Willow weeks to coax Spike into. Now he looked awkward and insecure.

"Are you sure?" she asked, and then heard a swift rapping at the door. Willow rose to answer it, turning back to Spike briefly. "Are you going to be all right?"

He nodded solemnly.

Willow took a deep breath, put on a 'happy' smile and opened the door.

"Buffy, hey!" Willow exclaimed. "What a surprise!"

Buffy gave her a strange look and walked in, hefting a large box in her arms. Her eyes rested on the blonde vampire at the dining table. "Spike," she said evenly. 

"Buffy," he replied softly, matching her serious tone.

"Buffy! So, uh, what brings you by?" Willow interrupted their silent staring match.

"Oh! Books from the Magic Box," Buffy said, and then reached out to hand Willow the box. Willow took it and immediately stumbled under its weight. She shakily lowered it to the floor.

"Heavy!" she exclaimed breathlessly by way of explanation.

"Oh! Sorry!" Buffy said guiltily. "I guess I didn't really notice."

"No, I, uh, guess you wouldn't," Willow said, and gestured towards the table. "Come on in. Sit down. Can I get you some coffee or a soda or anything?"

"Uh, a Diet Coke would be great." Buffy flashed Willow an awkward grin.

"I guess I'll… go get that then." She shot Spike a helpless look before backing into the kitchen.

Willow returned a few minutes later with two sodas and a plate of cookies. She found Buffy sitting at the table, chair scooted as far as possible towards Willow's end. The slayer and the vampire were both awkwardly avoiding eye contact.

"So… whatcha guys working on?" Buffy asked as Willow sat down.

"We're researching possible threats from the hellmouth," Willow said. "Right now we're just going through a list of possible perps. Seeing if this kind of thing is their regular M.O."

Buffy nodded.

"Spike's working on translating this version of the Master's chronicles." Willow gestured towards him, and he didn't look very grateful for the shift of attention, so she continued the explanation herself. "The problem is I've done some detection spells and haven't found any kind of magical signature over Sunnydale. A spell cast over such a wide area would have been pretty powerful, there's no way I wouldn't have noticed it."

"So it's not a spell then?" Buffy reached over to grab a chocolate-chip cookie.

"No. It actually can't be magic at all."

"Then what is it?" Buffy asked, taking a bite of cookie. She continued with her mouth still full. "With mojo like this, could it really be anything except for magic?"

"There are other things," Willow said. "Um, I think it might be related to energy. Somehow, something in the hellmouth's gathering energy every time people reenact something. It's taking the energy people would have been using to do whatever they would have been doing. When that energy's gone, the people are caught up in the emotional energy left from whatever took place in that spot."

"Oh, um… don't get it."

"It's kind of complicated, and I'm not even sure that that's it, but it's the best we have to go on right now." Willow shut the case on her laptop, and reached over to grab a cookie for herself. She held the plate out to Spike in offering, but he refused with a sharp turn of his head.

"What does it have to do with the Master?" Buffy asked.

"Well, we've been looking at all different demons who might be trapped in the hellmouth, who could be using the energy to try to escape." Willow sighed.

Buffy nodded. "Well, I just hope you guys find something soon. This is getting out of control." She sunk down into her chair. "I got engaged again this morning."

Willow and Spike just stared at her dumbly.

"Buffy?" Willow asked, clearing her throat. "Did you say you—"

"Got engaged. Yeah. Again." She rolled her eyes. "I don't think I'll ever get married in real life, but somehow I'm always the one who gets proposed to when there's a spell."

Willow glanced at Spike, acutely aware of who the last proposal was with and how it had been all her fault. He was staring down at the table.

"Who was it this time?" Willow asked finally.

"Anya," Buffy said dejectedly.

"Anya?" Willow laughed. She caught Spike's eye across the table, and actually caught him with a small smirk. She smiled and turned back to Buffy. "So you're engaged to _Anya?"_

"Yeah, and you know what the worst part was? It was like it was real. At the time, I mean. Just like the last time." She glanced at Spike. "I was in love with her and I was kissing her and—"

"Wait," Willow interrupted, letting out a hoot of laughter. "You kissed Anya?"

"Shut up," Buffy grumbled, trying to fight back a smile of her own. "It's not funny."

"I'm sorry," Willow gasped, between laughs. "It's just you… and Anya."

"Got Anya taste in your mouth now, eh?" Spike said dryly, and Buffy looked at him for a moment before finally smiling back.

"This is so not funny," Buffy protested despite herself.

"Buffy!" Anya called from the front porch. Here she was, exhibiting the manners not to teleport herself into the house uninvited, and Buffy wouldn't even answer the doorbell. Fine. See if she ever caught Anya being polite again. After she made an extra trip all the way out here with more books she had found after Buffy left.

Anya shrugged and transported herself into the dining room. She set the books down on the table and sauntered into the kitchen. The least Buffy could do was provide her with food for her trip out here.

She opened the fridge and wrinkled her nose. She had only been human for three years and even she knew how to read expiration dates. Closing the fridge, she turned to the cupboards. Something chocolate would be nice. Handy thing about being immortal, didn't have to worry about gaining weight.

Knowing these anorexic-looking Summers girls, though, she found nothing even resembling junk food. Finally, she settled on a box of Frosted Wheaties. Tearing open the plastic, she reached in and--

Across the kitchen, the knife stand caught her attention. She walked over, her cereal forgotten. Pulling out a long, sharp knife, she plunged it into her arm.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she pulled it downward, making a nice, clean cut along the inside of her wrist, and yanked it out. She stared at the blood quickly welling to the surface. Her vision began to blur both from the emotion and the pain.

She walked shakily into the front hall, knife still in hand. She looked around.

"Is this blood?" she asked, dazed. "This is blood, isn't it?" She stared down at her wrist. "It can't be me. I'm not a key." She gulped in a breath of oxygen. "I'm not a thing."

She looked back up at her nonexistent audience, her voice grim but still shaky. "What am I?" Tears came to her eyes. "Am I real? Am I anything?"

Silence answered her.

Buffy let out a long sigh as she closed the door to Xander's apartment behind her. 

She had been so relieved when Xander had told her that he and Willow had taken Spike in. At the time, she hadn't been ready to deal with him. Not with the soul thing or with all the ugly and not-so-ugly memories that surfaced every time she saw his face. She figured that she would have dealt with it eventually, though. She would have eventually sought him out in the basement, would have dragged him out of there. Maybe even found a place for him on her couch to stay. But she had felt like a huge weight was lifted when she realized she wouldn't have to.

However, she had been putting off seeing Willow and Spike for a couple weeks now. She saw Willow occasionally, at the Bronze or with Xander. But she had resisted being alone with either her or the vampire. They were the two people who had hurt her the most in the past year, but they were also the two people who were suffering the most. They both needed her forgiveness more than anything, but Buffy still didn't know it she was ready yet to offer it.

When Giles had called and mentioned the books in the Magic Box, she knew she couldn't put off seeing them any longer. And it hadn't been terrible. At first, of course it was awkward. But after a while, especially after she had mentioned her engagement to Anya, she and Willow were starting to talk like old friends again. And Spike, even with him she had almost felt comfortable.

Leaning back against the wall, Buffy reached into her back pocket and withdrew the crumpled post-it she always carried with her. With her eyes she traced the stick-figure Spike-on-a-cross rendition. She didn't know why she kept it with her, but she would take it out and look at it sometimes. It was a reminder. A reminder that there was something better out there. There was hope, she supposed. Even if she couldn't feel it right now.

She stuffed the paper back into her pocket and headed out.

"So the limo's supposed to be at my place by 5:15, so I should be able to pick you up by 5:30. Are you going to be ready by then?"

Dawn stared across the cafeteria table at Brian, and nodded. Her heart was racing. It always did when she was around him. But not in a good way anymore.

"My parents are going to want us to come back to their place after I pick you up. They want pictures or something… Shouldn't take too long, though. What color's your dress?" he asked, taking a bite out of his tuna sandwich.

"What?" Her mind was whirling, thoughts of kisses and violence, and she couldn't concentrate on the conversation.

"For the corsage," he explained and took a sip from his soda. "So it matches."

"Oh… oh. Not red." _Most definitely not red. Or anything resembling blood._

Brian smiled in amusement. "Not red. Anything more specific than that? You do have a dress, don't you?"

"Yeah, yeah. Of course," she hastily defended herself. "I mean, the dance is, like, in two days. Of course I have a dress. It's… um, blue. Blue's good." _A very non-red color._

"Okay," he said, turning back to his lunch.

"No! Not blue. Green." _Green was opposite red on the color spectrum. "It's green."_

"Okay, green."

_Damn. Dawn just remembered the only green dress she had was the one from Anya's wedding. "Not green. Um, make it blue." She was sure she had a decent blue dress somewhere…_

"Blue-green?"

"No, just blue. Plain old blue."

"Okay, then. Blue."

Dawn gulped, not sure if she was ever going to be ready to go through with this. If knowing all the pain and misery of relationships was what growing up entailed, she wished she had had at least another couple years of unfettered adolescence.

_Wait –- blue was the color of Spike's eyes. She couldn't wear blue. Dawn wondered if she had a yellow dress anywhere. No connotations there besides a lack of fashion sense…_

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_Later that afternoon_

"Oh no," Willow blurted out, her eyes widening the further she read. "No."

Spike immediately sensed her panic and crossed the table to look over her shoulder at the book.

"What is it, pet?"

Willow pointed wordlessly at the book in front of her. Spike frowned, but picked it up and began reading aloud:

"And once the barrier is broken, it must be recreated, or else the energy will never stop seeping into the chasm. Though the original channel may be gone, the tower will find energy, and will take it using whatever means it can. It is the natural order of things. Things will go from an area of high energy to an area of low energy, until all is equal. In the chasm, there is no energy, it disappears. As a result, the effigy will keep sucking energy until there is none left."

Spike stopped reading and looked down at Willow. "What's this?" He thumbed through the pages to get to the index. "The Effigy of Proserpexa?"

She nodded, tears starting to form in her eyes. "I thought I could do it, Spike. I was doing so well. I thought that it was all behind us – behind me. And now it turns out that it's been here all along."

"Love?" Spike questioned, aware of her obvious agitation but clueless as to how to help her. He did need to help her, though. Willow had been there by his side almost every minute of these past few weeks. He had to try to return the favor best he could. "What is it?"

"Last summer," she choked out softly. "When I was all black-eyed and veiny, I decided to end the world."

Spike awkwardly patted her shoulder.

"I raised this temple and I was going to channel all of the energy of the world into it. I started to, but then Xander—"

"Saved the bloody day," Spike finished. "I've heard that story often enough. Some rot about yellow crayons."

"Well, the temple – it's still there. I'm so stupid," she said, angrily wiping at her nose. "I should have known that since it didn't go back into the earth that something was wrong."

Spike remained silent.

"It's the thing that's sucking the energy from Sunnydale. And it's been doing it for months! All this time here I am going about my stupid rehabilitation in England thing, and moseying around here like some kind of dork while people have still been suffering because of me. And I never even knew it. What if it's been doing other things, too? Things we didn't even notice? What if people are dying because of me and I never even—"

"That's bollocks, Red. And you know it." Spike cut in. "We're going to fix this, just like everything else. No harm."

"But…"

"Shhh, pet." Spike knelt beside her chair and let her rest her face into his shoulder, the thin cloth soaking up her warm tears. "S'all okay."

They both looked up at the sound of the door opening. "Hey guys!" Xander called. He noticed Spike and Willow hugging, tears in Willow's eyes. He approached her in concern. "Will – what's wrong?"

"It's me," Willow looked up from Spike's shoulder with tear-blurred eyes. "It's been my fault all along."****


	6. Part Five

**Part Five**

"So… you're saying that the big bad sucking energy from Sunnydale isn't in hellmouth at all?" Buffy clarified, trying to understand what Willow was saying. Willow, Xander and Spike had shown up at her doorstep half an hour ago. They had spent the time since then awkwardly explaining that they had discovered what had been causing the recent reenactments. "And that it's actually coming from the temple that Willow raised last summer?"

Willow took a deep breath but prided herself for not tearing up again. "Yes."

"Okay," Buffy accepted easily. "So what do we do?"

"Well, we need to replace the barrier. It's actually a fairly simple spell." Willow held out a paper. "Here's a list of the ingredients we're going to need. I have most of them, but there's a few that I was hoping you might have here."

Buffy took the paper and read aloud, "Sage. Caraway. Cinnamon?"

"At least the spell's going to smell good for a change," Xander pointed out.

"Hey, don't all my spells smell good?" Willow asked in mock offense. Buffy crinkled her nose.

"That nasty tea you made me with the demon's blood last year? Not so appetizing."

"In my defense," Willow said. "That wasn't technically a spell. And you also didn't even drink it the first time, so no complaining."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "It's not my fault it smelled so bad it made me want to stay in a mental institution."

"Hey, Will, you know what you should do," Xander began. "Make a spell that'll be a permanent air freshener. You could market it, make millions."

As Xander continued on the theory of air fresheners, Buffy turned to glance at her sister. Dawn was sitting awfully quietly on the couch beside her, and Buffy got the feeling the proximity to Spike was disturbing her. Buffy thought it was a cruel twist of fate that the sexual assault scene appeared to have affected Dawn much more deeply than it had even Buffy herself. She turned her gaze to Spike. He was seated on the edge of the couch, next to the table lamp, and the light was casting his sharp features into high relief. Maybe, Buffy thought, if she could get Spike and Dawn to talk, maybe he could make her feel better about the whole situation. Because Buffy sure wasn't helping. She was far too screwed up and confused herself to offer any advice.

"Here Dawn." Buffy handed her sister the ingredients list. "Can you go make sure we have all of these?"

Dawn nodded and silently took the paper, heading towards the kitchen.

"Oh, uh, Spike?" Buffy asked as soon as her sister was out of the room. She was immediately caught off guard by the way her heart leapt when his blue eyes turned to her. This was not the time to sort out her crazy love life, though. "Can you go help her, make sure she knows what everything is?"

He frowned a little, but complied.

"Hello, Dawn," he said quietly. Dawn jumped.

"What are you doing here?" she asked darkly when she realized who it was. She turned back to the spice rack.

"Big sis asked me to come… make sure you knew what all the spices were." He stood awkwardly near the doorway.

"They're labeled. In English," Dawn pointed out dryly. She pulled the cinnamon jar down and placed it in with a small pile of other spices on the counter.

"I can see that," he said quietly, and looked down at the floor.

"Buffy, I want to leave Spike here at your house tomorrow while we're at the bluffs."

"What?" Buffy turned to Willow, sure she had heard her wrong. "You don't trust him home alone?"

"No, it's not like—okay, maybe it is like that." Willow sighed. "When we leave him alone, he has a tendency to…"

"Hurt himself," Xander finished for her, his voice low.

Buffy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, the usual," Xander said. "Knives, sunlight, crosses…"

Buffy looked between her friends in shock.

"Well, not lately," Willow hedged, trying to downplay it. "He's been okay for at least two weeks now, but…  I don't know how long Xander and I are going to be tomorrow, and I don't want to take any chances."

"You want me to baby-sit a 200-year-old vampire?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"Actually, he's only 122 – but, yes." Willow nodded. "I mean, you don't work on Fridays anyways, right? So you'll be home."

Buffy nodded reluctantly.

"You can go tell Buffy that I am still capable of reading English," Dawn said when after a few moments Spike still hadn't left.

"Are you all right, Dawn?" he asked seriously.

"Of course I'm all right," she said annoyed. "Now go tell Buffy—"

"Something's wrong," he insisted, pushing off the doorframe to take a cautious step forward.

"Everything's wrong!" she exclaimed. "But you can't fix any of it, so just go away."

"Your sis sent me in here for a reason," he said. "She wouldn't even talk to me unless she had a bloody good cause, and even then she'd try to find a way around it. But she asked me to come in 'ere, so I figure she wants you and me to have a little chit chat."

"I have nothing to talk to you about." But she did. And there had been a time when she would have curled up next to him and tearfully told him everything, confessed all her fears and doubts. But that had been before he had been the cause of them. Before the Bathroom. Before the Soul. Before fucking up her entire life, no matter how inadvertently he had done so.

Spike paused a beat and then turned to leave. "All right, then."

"Wait." Dawn took a deep breath, and wondered if maybe, maybe she could give him a second chance. Maybe he could tell her that that stuff in the bathroom hadn't been real, hadn't really happened. She wanted to beg him to tell her a joke, make her laugh again. She wanted to throw her arms around him, let him cradle her head against his broad chest.__

"Yeah, pet?" He looked back at her and Dawn felt tears well up in her eyes. He wasn't her Spike anymore, if in fact he ever had been. His chest was not so broad now. The vampire before her was broken, crushed and she knew he could never again be to her what she needed.

"Nothing."

"So all we're missing is caraway, right?" Xander confirmed, and Willow nodded. "Okay, Buff. We're going to stop by the store on the way home and then we'll see you bright and early tomorrow morning."

Buffy nodded, and watched as Xander, Willow and Spike walked back to the car. She was lost in thought about the next morning. Wondering how she was going to pass more than fifteen minutes in conversation with Spike. As much as she dreaded it, half of her was looking forward to it. Maybe, finally, they'd be able to talk and sort their baggage out. Not all of it, because Buffy alone had enough relationship baggage to fill a 747, but maybe enough to make their next encounter less awkward.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

_Next morning_

"You can talk to me, you know."

Spike looked up from the bookcase, raising his eyebrows slightly. "Can I now?"

"You don't have to act like I'm some kind of leper," Buffy said, watching him closely from her seat in the armchair. He had been carefully avoiding her ever since Willow and Xander had dropped him off over an hour ago.

"No, not you, pet," he assured her softly. "Just figured as you didn't want me here in the first place, might as well stay out of your way."

"Well, yeah," she agreed. He was perceptive as always. But she watched as he turned back to the bookcase, not quite shielding the pain on his face. "Spike, come sit down, okay?"

She hated how he looked at her with those desperate blue eyes. It was as if anything from her, the smallest crumb, made his life worth living. She couldn't deal with that kind of responsibility, with that kind of love.

"Spike, I'm stupid."

He frowned slightly. "Not following you, love."

She sighed loudly. "I'm stupid. I don't know what I'm doing with my life, or with Dawn or my friends or anything. I'm confused," she admitted. "And I can't see straight about anything."

He leaned forward, listening but not judging. The same way he always used to, back when no one else could hear her.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do. With anything anymore." She shook her head. "Like Dawn, she's having problems and I try to help, but I can't. And my own life's so screwed up, what's my advice worth anyways?"

She took a deep breath and continued: "And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with you. Especially with you." This was the hard part, but she needed to say it, needed to make him understand. "You came back and… I knew I was supposed to be angry. You broke my trust and you hurt me and if I'd been worth anything as a slayer I would have staked you right then and there. But I didn't. I couldn't."

She fingered the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt as she spoke. "And when you came back I wasn't angry. I was as confused as I'd ever been, and I didn't know what to do. Part of me wanted to forgive you, and part of me never could. Part of me couldn't even forgive myself for all I'd done."

She continued, still avoiding his intense gaze. "Every day since that night in the church I find myself wishing that I had stayed, that I hadn't left you there. I mean, look at me, ungrateful Buffy. A vampire goes off and gets a soul for me, and what do I do? I completely abandon him. I didn't even see you for like a month and…"

"Pet," he interrupted gently. "You didn't owe me anything. You still don't."

"I know, I just…" She stood up and paced across the living room, her back to him. "I just wish I wasn't so scared. I wish I could be… I don't know." She shook her head and headed for the stairs. "I'll be right back."

"A family reunion?" Brian repeated.

Dawn caught the surprise and disappointment in his eyes and then remembered she was trying to avoid eye contact. She focused on the long line of lockers. She wondered idly if the bell had already rung, because everyone else seemed to be in class. "Yeah, um, big deal, you know. Family and all."

"All weekend?" he asked. "You can't get away for a few hours? We can cut the dance short if you have to."

"No, it's uh… out of town," she said. "In Birmingham."

"Alabama?"

"Yeah, that's, uh, where my family's from," she said, pretty sure that he could see straight through her lie.

"Oh, okay," he acquiesced. "Well, I guess I'll see you around."

"Yeah," Dawn said softly. She followed him with her eyes as he walked away.

Buffy splashed her face with cold water, trying to stave off the tears she had felt forming in her eyes. She looked up at herself in the mirror. God, what did he even see in her? She felt her fist tighten around the tap. A stupid little twenty-one year old girl, lost adrift in this chaotic world. Blind and stupid. And why did everything have to be so hard, anyways? Why was one part of her drawn to him – why did one part of her remember the tenderness he had shown her, and wonder how much more tender he'd be now with his soul? Why did she still remember the fire, the sparks when their lips touched?

And if she had to remember all of that, why did another part of her have to remember the violence and the darkness? The beatings and the handcuffs and the attempted rape and the screaming and how he didn't stop. Why didn't he stop? _Why couldn't he have just fucking stopped?_

She felt a snap and a spray of water and it brought her back to the present. She looked down in horror as she realized that she had snapped the faucet clean off of the bathroom sink. Damnit. Now water was spurting straight up, making her bathroom into some kind of fantastic fountain.

She tried shoving the faucet back on, but it didn't stick when she let it go.

"Spike!" she called out.

"So here we are," Xander said, standing next to Willow as they took in the temple still rising above the sandy Sunnydale bluffs.

Willow nodded hesitantly, her heart speeding up at the proximity to the very spot where She. Almost. Ended. The world. If it had been a happier memory, one of coming home after a long absence, she would have started pointing out the sights. _Oh, look, here, that's where I stood while I was trying to channel all of the world's energies through me. Oh, and look, there's where I tried to smite you down, Xander. And, right here, here's where the world didn't end because you were stupid and brave enough to stand up to crazed maniacal __Willow__._

She took a deep breath and took the round white tablecloth from Xander, spreading it unevenly over the sand.

"Where do you want these?" Xander asked, holding up a bag full of candles.

"Just put them in a circle around the center of the blanket here." Willow took out a bowl full of the carefully mixed spell solution and placed it in the center of the cloth. She sat down cross-legged on the sand and started meditating to clear her head before beginning.

Xander touched his match to the last of pure white candles. Once it was burning on its own, he blew out the match. He looked up at his friend, squinting in the brightness of the sun.

"You ready?"

Willow hesitated only a moment before nodding.

Spike immediately raced up the stairs. As soon as he noticed the slayer, face and hair splashed with dripping water, fighting an epic battle with the bathroom faucet, old snarky Spike wanted to come out to play. It was all he could do to push down the smirk and caustic comment boiling under the surface.

"What do you need?" he asked.

"Um, wrench. Wrench would be of the good." Her wet hair sprinkled water across the bathroom as she nodded decisively.

"Where is it?" he asked. It had been at least a year since he had last looted her house and things had probably moved since then. He cringed slightly at the memory of stealing from her of all people.

"Basement," she said. "No, wait… um, kitchen. Junk drawer."

"Junk drawer?"

"Yeah, it's the second one on the left from the fridge. Or is it the right?" Buffy frowned. "You know what, you hold this down and I'll go get it."

Spike approached the sink again and reached for the broken faucet, their hands brushing against each other as they traded places. Their eyes met with a jerk, both shocked by the sensation of each other's touch.

"Spike," Buffy said hoarsely. She cleared her throat. "We need to talk."

"Sure, pet." He glanced down at the spurting faucet. "But you couldn't have picked a better time?"

"I'm sorry," Buffy said, looking up at him. Their hands were still touching and her face was so close that he could feel her breath. "Not that it matters anymore." She looked down. "I just… needed you to know that."

"Buffy, you've got nothing to be—"

"I know you feel like I do," she cut him off. "You don't have to hide it anymore."

The meaning of her words came crashing down on him like an avalanche. He dropped the faucet, letting the water spurt up into the bathroom, and backed away from her quickly, panicked.

"Buffy," he pleaded. "Please don't do this."

"Let yourself feel it," Buffy said, advancing on him. Spike tried to back out of the bathroom, but banged instead into the door. It slammed shut behind him. He was reaching around to grab the handle when Buffy caught his shoulder in her slayer-strength grip.

"I know you love me."

Willow suddenly stopped chanting and she opened her eyes.

"Is it done?" Xander asked, watching her glance around in confusion.

"No…" she said, frowning. "Something's wrong… oh." She sighed in relief. "The candle just went out."

Xander pulled out his matchbox. "Ready to go again?"

Willow closed her eyes and nodded.

Spike found himself slammed onto the floor, his head banging against the tiles. He tried to inch away from her, but it was no use. Buffy was already on top of him, pinning his arms and legs down with her own. He forced himself to look up into her flushed face.

"Buffy, stop this," he pleaded. "You can stop. Please."

She savagely grabbed his shirt and ripped it down the center in one jerk of her hand. "Let yourself feel it. Let yourself—"

"Stop!" Spike yelled but to deaf ears. Her fingernails tore down his now-naked chest, drawing blood without intention. "Buffy, stop!"

"You love me," she insisted.

"No, Buffy, please…" Spike begged, tears beginning to well up in his eyes. So this is what it felt like. So this is what he had looked like to her, desperate and raging, like a deranged animal.

"I know you felt it," she said desperately. "When you were inside me." 

So this is the monster he was and would always be.

"What happened with Brian?"

Dawn frowned at Theresa. When her teacher's back turned, she whispered back: "What did you hear?"

"I heard he's taking Kathy Reynolds to Homecoming."

"I thought she had a boyfriend."

"I guess they broke up last night. I thought you were going with him, though."

"I had to cancel," she whispered.

Theresa looked at her like she was crazy. "What were you thinking? He's such a hottie."

Dawn frowned. "I didn't think he'd get another date in, like, not even an hour."

"You never going to get another chance like that, you know," she said. "How many other senior boys are going to ask you out, like, ever?"

"Buffy, don't!" He struggled desperately beneath her, trying to get any kind of hold, any kind of leverage, but she was too strong, too damn strong… "No…" he trailed off. Tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto the tiled floor beneath them. "Please, Buffy, please. Please, stop!"

From above him, she ripped off the rest of his shirt, sending it flying across the bathroom. Spike distantly felt the spray of cold water on his chest from the forgotten faucet.

"Let yourself love me," she commanded desperately. She reached down with one hand and jerked open the fly of his jeans. The button popped off and clattered against the wall. _This wasn't happening, Spike told himself. __This wasn't possible. This was a nightmare or something. This wasn't—_

He watched helplessly as she ripped off her own pants, managing somehow to do so without giving him even an ounce of leverage with which he could have escaped this terrible scene.

"Buffy," he continued pleading. "Buffy, please stop. Please."

"Shit!" Willow cried out in the middle of her incantation. Xander, who had once again stopped paying attention as soon as the Latin part had started, immediately jerked to attention.

"What is it? Will, what's wrong?" he asked, panicked.

She shook her head, her light red hair tossing behind her in the wind. "Sorry, Xan, I'm a little on edge." She gestured towards the candles. "They blew out again. I'm going to have to start all over. Next time I try to end the world, remind me not to do it on top of a hill, okay?"

"You're going to feel it," Buffy reached down to stroke him. It was all pain and suffering and nails and… Spike felt his tears come harder when it was enough. She grinned down at him. "You're going to feel it again."

This shouldn't be happening. The thought ran over and over in his mind. It shouldn't be going this far. None of the other reenactments ever went further than they had in real life. It should be over by now. It should be over, but it wasn't. It wasn't. New tears streamed down Spike's face as Buffy forced him into her.

It was the most horrible feeling in the world. He tried to throw up, but he couldn't even do that. He tried to break free, but she still had him pinned too tightly. He tried to cry out to her, but his voice wouldn't sound. There was nothing. Nothing left for him but the perverse rhythm she was setting and the cold water sprinkling over them.

"Will, look, it's working!" Xander called out and Willow opened her eyes. Before them, with a low rumble that was almost mechanical, the cursed temple was sliding back into the hell from which it came.

Willow couldn't help but smile. She bit her lip as she watched it slowly disappear into the sand in the bright morning sunlight. "We fixed it," she said. "We really did it."

Willow stood up and Xander slung an arm around her back. He kissed the top of her head. "I knew you could do it."

All color drained from Buffy's face. Despite her ugly, perverse position she found herself paralyzed. Straddling Spike's hips, feeling him in the depths of her body… She stared down at him in abject horror.

Spike knew now why it had gone this far. Because it would have. Because if he had been stronger than Buffy, if she hadn't been able to stop him, it would have gone this far, all these months ago. The answer to the age-old question was finally here. Would he have actually done it?

Yes.

Nothing, not a soul, not forgiveness, nothing could save him from the fact that he would have done it. He would have hurt, would have raped, this beautiful, strong, shining woman he loved so much.

He shoved Buffy roughly off of him. She sunk, still in shock, to the floor.

Without looking back, Spike ran.

Buffy found herself lying prostrate on the bathroom floor right where he had left her. She struggled quickly to her feet, tripping over her own jeans in the process.

"Spike!" she called after him, pulling her tattered pants back up over her hips. She heard footsteps run down the stairs. She took another breath to yell for him, but suddenly heard the front door slam.

Willow stared at the disappearing temple, unable to completely conceal a grin as the steeple sunk underground. She looked at the magic circle of candles, and her cinnamon-flavored brew. "There's some perfume for you, Spike."

 "What was that?" Xander asked, his arm still slung around her shoulders.

"Oh, nothing. Just something Spike said." She smiled. "I think he's wrong."

He snorted. "Because that would be a first."

 "Spike!" Buffy yelled as she ran for the front door. "Spike!"

She yanked it open but all she saw was the sunlight pouring in. Suddenly she remembered that the remnants of his shirt were still scattered in the bathroom. She glanced desperately over to the living room. His blanket was still there, draped mockingly over the back of the couch.

"No," she said in horror, clapping her hand over her mouth. She turned back towards the door and stared out into the bright sunny day. "No…"

_finis_

Okay, now that's it's over, here's my official plea for feedback. Tell me what you liked, what you hated, what you wish I'd done differently, why you're ready to kill me for ending it like this… My address is cerdd_gwen@hotmail.com or leave a review here at fanfiction.net.


	7. Notes

**Notes**

_This contains spoilers for the story. It is meant to be read only after you've finished._

**All the Perfumes: The original quote comes from Shakespeare's _Macbeth (Act V, scene I). During Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking sequence, she says: "Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." In Part Two, Spike badly paraphrases this and Willow incorrectly guesses that he's referencing __Hamlet (and we all thought she was so smart…)._**

**Dialogue: I got all the quotes from the show from the the _Buffy Dialogue Database (http://vrya.cstone.net/), the best Buffy reference site __ever._**

**If you liked this…: There are other Buffy fanfiction recommendations, most of which are way better than I could ever write, at my web site _All We've Ever Done (http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/cerdd_gwen/). Check them out._**

**Innocent: Whenever I got writer's block, I listened to "Innocent" by _Our Lady Peace. I would love to make a vid to it with scenes from this story, but, unfortunately, this would require filming it first and none of the actors have returned my phone calls. In the meantime, go watch Valerie's "Innocent" vid at __We Band of Buggered (http://www.bandofbuggered.com/). It's terrific._**

**To sequel?**** Or not to sequel?: Sorry, I'm still on the Shakespearean kick here (there, Willow, _that was a reference to __Hamlet). If you're ready to kill me for the ending, please keep in mind that, first of all, it's my sister's fault. She's the one who made me end it there. And, secondly,  I do have a sequel planned. If you'd like to be notified when it's posted, just drop me at line at cerdd_gwen@hotmail.com._******


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